golden treasure

“There are so many little dyings that it doesn’t matter which of them is death.”

~Kenneth Patchen

This sight brings tears to my eyes.  But of gratitude and joy, mostly.  It feels so full, this thankfulness, that it just comes up and spills out of my tear ducts.

It has to go somewhere.

The heirloom beans are starting to fade as the autumn transition picks up speed.  Even now, I find them beautiful.  Every step along the way, they have stirred my heart.  Every step of the way, wise and invisible hands were guiding my own… and I know it, and I am so thankful.

I really didn’t know what I was doing when the adventure began.  In my inexperienced hands:  25 seeds, several years old.  Behind me:  a long tradition of loving to help things grow.  Around me:  evidence of longstanding drought.  Before me:  a newly dug kitchen garden bed.

Extinction seemed a very real possibility.

But inside me.  Oh, inside me — I can’t even give it a name.

And that which was inside me got support from all over the place.  From the sky, from the soil, from the breeze, from the birds, from the worms, from my cats, from F., from my family and friends, from the very Earth spinning on her axis.

Somehow, I’ve collected jars and jars of the seeds, and the only other seed I’d saved before was basically on accident.  (Remind me to tell you that story sometime.  It’s funny.)  Over the coming months, I’ll tell you all the mistakes I made, how things could have gone badly wrong so many times… and how it always seemed to work out just fine.  And I’m really not taking credit for that.

Maybe this is how life works.  You decide to do something that is in your heart, and you take the steps you know how to take — or that you feel led to take, and somehow… you are partnered.  Somebody Else is taking the other steps, the ones you couldn’t possibly know yet, and meets you there, in the blank spaces where you would falter without help.

At least sometimes it works this way.  I don’t know any more than that.

The family heirloom is alive and well.  Dormant now, and awaiting loving hands to carry it forward another season.  I can only say thank you for this treasure — and know that this message of deep gratitude has already been received, the first moment it welled up in my heart.

Print PDF