Gentleness

I have been thinking a lot about gentleness. I think naturally I am not the most gentle person. In the obvious way of not being physically very gentle, as a kid I was accused of being too strong, or you know making the boys cry. Andrew used to make fun of me when we where dating because I always wore this worn out old 80s shirt that said "no violence" and he would laugh saying that that didn't seem like the thing that I would be promoting. My nickname when I played soccer in high school was "thrasher". Anyways, you get the point. Now in my adult life it is a different type of gentleness I think I am lacking and want to work toward. My natural tendency is to be very intense. I think this has served me well in lots of ways, I get a lot done, and I can handle a lot. But as I am coming out of a season of a lot of big changes and growth I think it is time to settle into a more gentle, tranquil space. I read this the other day and I think it sums it all up pretty well. It isn't that I don't want to work, or move forward, there are just times that call for calm. There are times that call you to trust that the hard labor has been done, and just rest.

On a farm you learn to respect nature, particularly for the wisdom of its dark underworld. When you sow things in the spring, you commit them to the darkness of the soil. The soil does its own work. It is destructive to interfere with the rhythm and wisdom of its darkness. You sow drills of potatoes on Tuesday and you are delighted with them. You meet someone on a Wednesday who says that you spread the potatoes too thickly, you will have no crop. You dig up the potatoes again and spread them more thinly. On the following Monday you meet an agricultural adviser who says this particular variety of seed potatoes needs to be spread close together. You dig them up again and set them closer to each other. If you keep scraping at the garden, you will never allow anything to grow. People in our hungry modern world are always scraping at the clay of their hearts. They have a new thought, a new plan, a new syndrome that now explains why they are the way they are. They have found an old memory that opens a new wound. They keep on relentlessly, again and again, scraping the clay away from their own hearts. In nature we do not see the trees, for instance, getting seriously involved in therapeutic analysis of their root systems or the whole stony world that they had to avoid on their way to the light. Each tree grows in two directions at once, into the darkness and out to the light, with as many branches and roots as it needs to embody its wild desires.

Anam Cara

Pictures from our weekend trip up north with our sweet friends.