The work of clearing rocks and boulders for a new garden patch reminds me yet again of the miracle of patience and baby steps in addressing what seems interminable or insurmountable.
We’ve had our first rain this season! Early! A gentle, “woman-rain” that didn’t last very long at all. Still, it did wash away some of summer’s dusty carapace and released extravagant, pungent, jubilant smells of greenness! The world smelled so new as I went wandering that night in the wetness.
With the rain came a few days of heavy gray overcast skies. Such a delicious blessing after the unrelenting, intense sun we’ve had for what seems like forever. I am very ready for the fall (such as it is in this part of California): The great displays of every variety of cloud, the crisp tangy air, the intensely golden afternoon light, temperatures that make daytime hikes in the mountains an inviting possibility again! Yes!
Out in the vegetable patch the other night, shears in one hand, flashlight in my teeth, I reached with my other hand to grasp one of the last beefsteak tomatoes for my dinner. As I went to cut the tomato, there was a bright-eyed little tree frog sitting on the adjoining beefsteak! She cocked her head, and though I’m sure she was staring into the light not really into my eyes, it surely felt as though we’d made contact. She sat unperturbed as I cut my tomato, whispered my thank you and said goodnight.
Driving home up the “back way” mountain road from a long sunset-into-dark amble on my favorite wild beach in Santa Barbara, moving slowly, enjoying vistas of the lake and the stars, I saw a young buck deer walking in the middle of the road. I slowed to a stop as he watched, seemingly unafraid rather than frozen, looking in my direction. It was my headlights between us this time but, again, there was that feeling of making contact. After a few moments, he turned and unhurriedly walked off into the brush at the side of the roadway. I was so glad it was me dawdling along at just that moment rather than someone else speeding along at sixty miles an hour.
Last night out for one of my post midnight rambles to my favorite creek, I met up with one of our local coyote bachelors. (It’s the females and pups that travel in packs.) No light this time, but he turned to check me out while he was strolling across the road not too far ahead of me.
I’m always so moved, so touched by these moments. So awed and blessed by the gentle encounter with a wild spirit.
I’ve been working in my vegetable garden this week, preparing a small new space for some organic greens I plan to start from seed instead of nursery seedlings. Extending my patchwork of little free form beds has meant moving into an area that till now has been covered with a thick layer of shredded bark on top of an under layer of gravel. And, under all of that lies virgin East End of Ojai soil: brimming with small boulders and endless rocks of various sizes.
This small four by eight oval is my latest practice in patience, moving slowly, doing baby steps in the process of preparing for new growth. Whenever I work on clearing patches of land for gardening, I feel as though I’m doing “contact magic.” It’s like living in metaphor: what I’m doing on the outside with the earth is symbolic of and parallel to what seems to be going on inside of me.Preparing a place for newness starts with removing the surface layers that no longer serve. Next there’s water soaking to soften the earth. Then it’s digging deep to uncover, pry up and remove the blocks and obstacles, the broken bits of the past that would interfere with the rooting of new growth. Always, preparing is a process of opening, loosening, softening.
I seem endlessly and forever fascinated by and drawn to the process of moving rocks. First I gathered large rocks to set the perimeter. After a few days of getting used to living with the size and shape I’d laid out, I began the next step. Sitting in the bark, getting totally filthy (how I love that!) I painstakingly began the work of separating shredded bark from gravel and putting both into separate buckets. (I reused both filling in some balding places in the garden and driveway.)
It’s always utterly amazing to work in such small increments at a task that appears at the start to be interminable and daunting, like emptying a pond with an eyedropper. Always there’s the miracle of patience and persistence. Sooner than seems conceivable, one makes a huge dent, sees a significant change! In just a few hours, over a couple of days (some of it while having phone visits using my headset) the job was done. Though it ‘s true that, when I got to the tiniest pebbles and tiniest shreds, I did finally give up on sorting. The last four “mixed” bucketsful went onto the bed of a drive-row in the orchard!
Today while ruminating about and writing this month’s pieces for the site I’ve been intermittently ankle and elbow deep in the earth. Again, a seemingly interminable task. This time it’s digging under and prying up endless middle to large size rocks and baby boulders as I prepare the patch for the organic soil amendments. It feels so right to move between writing and digging. When I get to a stuck place in the flow of the writing, I go dig up some rocks. In the cycling back and forth, both tasks move to completion.
It’s incredibly nourishing and enormously satisfying to do all this work by my own hand. I love being on such intimate terms with the earth that grows my food. I love how working in the earth keeps me in my body in the present even as, today while writing, my mind can even be off wandering and remembering the past.
Originally published October 2002
