Harvest Time Medicine
Alaafia and Blessings fellow life travelers,
On the heels of the Autumn Equinox and in the spirit of the harvest season, I extend blessings and greetings to you and yours.
Today I'm writing to share a bit of what I'm calling harvest time medicine and it is my hope that it sparks curiosity and insight for you along your path.
It Begins With A Story…
A few weeks ago, in community circle, our dear session leader framed our time together as an opportunity to reflect on the harvest season that is upon us. She specifically offered the question below for reflection:
“What has been planted in you this year?”
The question itself prompted an entire exhale from my Spirit as I reflected on the past few months. I felt my awareness drift towards this past spring when the word “soil” seemed be sprinkled generously throughout my internal landscape every time I tuned in to listen. This seemed to be in contrast to the outside world, which appeared to be teeming with seed related metaphors, medicines and photos on social media timelines, as many prepared to greet the spring season. As silly as it sounds, I felt seed-related fomo (fear of missing out) but ultimately decided to trust that my internal cues were signs that there was something the soil wanted to teach me. As I leaned in with curiosity, I quickly found myself deep inside the rabbit holes of bokashi composting (fermenting compost), vermicomposting (worm composting) and chicken manure composting.
The Ah-Ha Moment…
As I reflected back on my external experiences of diving down those rabbit holes, it dawned on me that I was in search of ways to nourish the soil web of my garden. And, my external experiences were not separate from the internal experiences unfolding in my personal life, which also seemed to be invitations beckoning me into deeper relationship with the soil web of my souls garden. Through a series of ongoing challenges and discomforts in my personal relationships, my internal experiences were inviting me to wonder what the soil web of my souls garden needed not only to be nourished, but to also create optimal soil conditions for the seeds that have yet to be planted.
Ya'll, my literal garden soil web and spiritual soil web were working in tandem to guide me into practices intended to facilitate deeper tending of the unseen relationships that create these soil webs, and in turn sustain life. Life itself, in full alignment with the teaching of the soil webs, continued to send experience after experience my way to serve as catalysts, moving me out of the theory and research of tending my soil webs and into the practice of doing so.
Don't you love when the natural worlds reflects our internal worlds back to us? Whew! Isn't Spirit so generous?!?
Harvest Time Medicines…
There are so many layers to the medicines of tending the soil, both physically and spiritually. The medicines below are the layers that feel most present in my heart and awareness.
Entire seasons of life may be dedicated to the tending of the soil web for the seeds that have yet to be planted.
In life as in the garden, we are not only invited to tend the seeds we plant. We are also invited to become stewards of our soil webs.
Challenges in life have the capacity to serve as catalysts moving us out of the research and theory of nourishing the soil web and into the practice of doing so.
My ancestors were soil scientists because they understood their survival depended upon their ability to be in relationship with the soil web. My ancestors had the capacity and presence to understand the conditions of the soil based on how it looked, felt, tasted and smelled. And I too aspire to relate and tend the soil webs of my life with that level of presence and awareness.
In Abundance, Love and Care,
Tamira C
Contemplation Practice
For those resonating with this medicine here are a couple of questions for contemplation:
What does the soil web of life want to teach you?
How do you want to nourish your soil webs moving forward?
Can you imagine a life where tending of the soil webs are part of your daily practice of “being”?
Ritual Practice: Digging Honey Holes
Gather compostable food waste and transport it outside.
Call in your unseen kin and greet the land and soil.
Share you intentions aloud to offer your gift of compost nectar for the nourishment of the soil web.
Dig a hole, gently pour in the compost inside and cover.
Listen to hear what the soil wants to share.
Close with a spell, prayer or song of your choosing.