i have been playing with fun writing now that i am on break. I have been heavily influenced by this book( David Abrams) and this paper is still a bit of a mess but I would love some feedback from you guys. I think after playing with this a bit more it will be part of my book someday!
Worms Eat My Garbabge
As the snow piles deep on the earth I see the tops of my tallest remaining phlox and bee balm stalks begin to vanish. This blanket seems to create new life with its death and everything looks so brand new
. How I love and hate winter. The change is amazing and experiencing the seasons makes me feel alive! I would expect to miss the Iris and foxglove but I know they, like myself need their winters rest. I can resist the urge to miss this beauty, my oasis for the small buzzing creatures that are now as quiet as the future buds that lay resting under the frozen winter soil. I can not however resist the urge to miss the taste of food so fresh and sweet as only the earth I have prepared can provide.
I have often wondered if this is a product of my fairly recent farming heritage that runs into my more distant family past. Something within me is humbled so greatly by working the soil and providing a place for plants to thrive that I can not ever get it out of my mind. To start with a small seed, knowing many natural factors will play into the outcome of its final fruits is an incredibly satisfying endeavor. One aspect of living off the land that our culture has grown out of is living according to what the local environment provides. I feel something lacks in the way we look at the world around us in not realizing where things we eat and use on a daily basis come from.
So in part I feel the lack of relationship with our food has caused humans to look at the natural world differently. In an environment that provides us so easily with things that once required so much effort, we easily forget we are destroying the earth out of convenience. this may not provide us with the long term results that will sustain our life here on earth. When I think about those who have never seen the beauty of a seed growing into the food they feed their family and it makes me sad. I feel sad for them but I also feel sad for the human race and I wonder how people will miss what they never know?
For me the need for being healed derives from the common way society has come to accept and desire materialistic accomplishments. The things that bring me true joy are on the inside, if I just listen to my inner self I feel happy and whole. My personal therapeutic process of so called healing is simple a process that allows me to always be aware of who I am and whats important to me. I never want to allow my own true self to be diluted by those around me or forgotten due to convenience. This study had helped me to be more aware of the need to stay intone with myself and I can do nothing more than that in our current society.
Through this study I am more thankful than ever that the world I live in is real, and I am more aware of the need to pause every now and then and thank the mother earth for giving me all the beauty I have tried to preserve in making my home on this amazing piece of land. For me this way of being is still possible and for my children it may be possible also, but how much harsher could we be on the life that allows us life? For me the world would not seem real to without waking up the natural orchestra of wildlife that surrounds me. I would not feel whole without land surrounding me fertile and ready to grow food and organisms not within my eyes ability everything is alive on so many levels. More than ever I see the importance of planting a seed within my children allowing them the lens through which I look at the world, and if they feel inspired to carry on a small part of that I will be satisfied.
If my children never grow a plant without me I know they will always remember the feeling of real garden soil in between their toes, and the taste and smell of vegetables picked warm and ripe while weeding the garden. Someday I hope my children will be able to drive by a Vermont farmer in December plowing his fields and spreading compost on this cold winter day like I did. And at the moment I am not even so sure why this strikes me, I think to myself now there is a real human being. The people left in the world that realize what is most convienitent is not always whats best. I will save the book American Garden Writing for my children along with the many gardening journals I have kept over the years. When my son goes to school and explains to the children that worms eat his garbage I realize at the age of three my son is in the world planting seeds so to speak.
As this study comes to a close my personal journey has only begun. I see people around me striving to achieve standards that ultimately bring them no true fulfillment. Much of the world is changing and it seems people are looking for something money cant buy. I have seen and experienced the benefit of searching within yourself and your more natural surroundings to find happiness. This study helped me realize the power of art therapy, various writing, and finding a deeper connection with nature for people who have not been exposed to these forms of therapy. My goals as a person, student, and potential therapist are to incorporate these forms of therapy into everything I do.