One Lone Metal Post – and a Plan…
In my trunk, I have a metal post.
Just a single post. I started a compost bin last summer, but I could only find three posts. I purchased the fourth and had some hardware cloth leftover from building the chickens’ run. Fall being what it is (at least for me), I got busy with the start of the school year, then processing veggies from the garden, and the post remains, resting in my trunk.
I still keep piling the compost in the area of the bin – garden waste, orange rinds, coffee grounds. Napkins and paper towels. Shredded junk mail. A bag of fertilizer that got left out in the rain. I think I put less in the compost now that we have chickens and pigs (because the food conversion is much quicker when you skip the “middle man”), but I continue to create a mountain of “someday” in the space where I will build the compost bin in the spring.
Composting
Composting is an act of hope, patience, and integration. Hope, because you gather leftovers, cast-offs, and waste from a previous season, place them thoughtfully in a specific, chosen area, and leave them, knowing, on the inside, that there will be something useful in the end. Patience, because the process is slow and unpredictable. A bruised tomato breaks down within days. Branches, on the other hand, take months or years to decay. Weather, temperature, aeration, and insect activity all impact the process. All we can do is watch and wait.
The act of creating compost is also one of integration. All those disparate components – twigs, leaves, wilted lettuce, and chicken coop cleanings – lose their original identity to become something altogether new – soil. And that soil, in turn, gives up its magic to create so many different things: pepper plants, mycorrhizae, a resting place for woolly bear coccoons, a nesting area for voles. Unrelated, discarded things take on a new life when they are melded together over time.
Yule, Night 12: A Night of Completion
In many religions, the number twelve is sacred, signifying divine completion, perfection, and wholeness. The twelve months of the solar calendar, and the twelve zodiac signs, reflect the cyclical nature of time, a holy order of the natural world, and the higher consciousness of the Creator of that world. The twelfth night of Yule completes our reflective cycle, in which we take what was left over from the past year, compost what we no longer wish to carry forward, and select the ones we want to plant and tend in the year to come.
Like the composting process in the garden, mental composting requires hope, patience, and integration to see its full benefit. The season of winter is still and quiet – a sacred pause imposed by cold weather, darkness, and snow. We don’t really DO anything in the garden – but we begin to reflect on what was, what we want to be different, and what we choose to bring into the new season. If we have the right mindset about this pause, however, we begin to hear the small voice within ourselves say, “This way. Look here.” We don’t move forward yet, but as we move into January, we begin to turn toward that voice. The cycle is long, and we must be patient to complete it. And that’s the beauty of this inner work time, as well.
Can You Hear the Voice?
There is a new layer of snow on the ground this morning. In the early hours, the world in my garden was hushed and muffled as the flakes fell rapidly over the yard and pasture. The grass, the woods, and the garden sleep under a blanket of white. In the background, amid the stillness of the baby day, however, one rooster crowed. One sentinel in the quiet, telling us the day is coming, even if we can’t see it yet.
I’ve never been a fan of snow. I grew up in a part of the country where each storm brought FEET of snow – Connecticut winter is relatively tame, in comparison. However, as I have grown older and maybe a little wiser, I have learned some critical things about snow. Where my cousin used to live, in Colorado, winter snow represents ALL the water for the season – it doesn’t rain in that part of the country in the summer months. So what is trouble in one season becomes the abundance of another. Farmers refer to snow as “nature’s fertilizer,” since a snowy winter means a well-watered and green grazing or planting area the following spring. And gardeners know that a blanket of snow means warmth and protection for perennials and animals that rest under its shield over winter.
After your Yule reflection, you might not see a significant change – not for a while yet. But your call – the small voice – is waiting, gestating under the snow of the season. Be patient and allow the slow alchemy of that small voice, and winter’s pause, to create magic that, for now, remains hidden. Keep that spark, the ideas you want to carry into this new year, warm and protected as you await the perfect timing for bringing them into the warmth and light. During this season, practice patience and unlearn the need to act. Practice waiting for the right time, reminding yourself that potential IS abundance in seed form.
A Twelfth Night Blessing
With the lengthening days, we prepare for the natural world to return to life again. Likewise, it is our hope, here at The Garden Way, that you, too, are hearing that small voice of hope and seeing that glimmer of light. May we all honor the work that is happening in the soil of our gardens, and the soil of our hearts, and keep the spark of hope warm until it is ready to ignite in the brighter days to come.
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