Things to look forward to…
growing your own food
While I don’t believe anyone can grow all their own food, most everyone can grow some of what they eat. And this is always a delight! A radish, pulled from the cold ground in the springtime. A cucumber slid from the vine. A pile of potatoes curing in the sun.
Humans are gardeners. We tend to little patches of earth and nudge along what we like to eat. While growing our food, we also grow our hopes and dreams and ideas. Gardening is a meditative practice. It is built on dreams of the future. It is the assemblage of our desires and our hunger into ordered beauty. We do not do the growing. We know that. But we take pride in what grows all the same. Without us, many of these plants would not grow here, maybe not grow at all. So it is our dreaming that makes them grow.
And then we get to eat our dreams. Savor our desires. Fill our bellies with hopes fulfilled. What other endeavor can so nourish both the body and the soul? And every year, this same nourishment. Maybe the radishes failed, but look at these beets, will you! Maybe the corn seems to have moved to another row, but it’s seven feet tall. Maybe this isn’t the tomato pictured on the seed packet, but nothing has ever defined tomato-ness quite so perfectly as this little wildling.
Our dreams can be fuzzy around the edges. That’s what makes them dreamlike. But whenever we take something, however unexpected, that we nurtured from its tiniest beginnings to fullest ripeness and then take a bite of that care-work, we know that this is just what we wanted. Every year, hopes and dreams grown to fruition. Every year, a thing to look forward to. Every year, a garden.
Wednesday Word
for 4 September 2024
work
I feel like I’ve already sufficiently addressed this in the last few days… Also, I’m just pooped… Think I’m doing good to get the word bank going. So here is the first of them. And now, I have to go back to…
You can respond in the comments below or go visit the All Poetry contest for September. Your response can be anything made from words. I love poetry, but anything can be poetic and you needn’t even be limited to poetics. An observation, a story, a thought. Might even be an image — however, I am not a visual person, so it has to work harder to convey meaning. In the spirit of word prompts, it’s best if you use the word; but I’m not even a stickler about that. Especially if you can convey the meaning without ever touching the word.
Even if you don’t choose to scribble, at least I’ve made you think about… work.
©Elizabeth Anker 2024
By My Solitary Hearth 
Would You Work?
********
Would you work
if you didn’t get paid?
Lucky are those who love their work,
but blessed are those who work without pay.
Some say that work and play are opposites.
Play is what you do
when you don’t have to work.
Would that you want to work.
The satisfaction of a job well done.
If the work did not matter,
the trivial, banal, boring work
would you still get the satisfaction
of a job well done?
Then there is right livelihood,
the work that matters.
But it does matter
what work you do.
Must work serve someone
Or something?
Does your work benefit
the common good
or enrich the takers, the rentiers?
Work that is necessary
life affirming, life enhancing,
work caring for life.
Or work destroying life
like a corrosive acid
dissolving the bonds of affection
that hold a society together,
bonds that tie
the web-of-life together.
Can you care about work
when work is caring
done out of love
even when that love is cruel?
Do you work out of need
or find work necessary?
Can you eat you work?
Would you work for nothing?
LikeLiked by 1 person