Preparing for the growing season, whatever that means for you, often requires some repairing. When there’s been a long pause, like winter for instance or a foray into an off farm job, needed resources sit around, nobody playing and working with them, so they fall into disarray. Repairing of equipment, mending fences, sharpening tools, and making sure things are lubed and in functioning order are ways of jumping backward the timeline to when the equipment went from working to not doing well. Time traveling to undo the tattered and broken. Preparations for moving forward require some moving back, reviewing processes so they can be updated to maintain integrity and flow. The flow changes, ya know, as time circles, so revisiting previous and yet to come circumstances in a different time is critical. Maintaining requires preparing which is often done by repairing what you already have.
You already have all of it, cause you are all of it. Sat nam. You are Truth. You are an inextricable piece of the whole truth, holistically. The world and how we take care of it, how we approach it. It’s resources, all of it. We learn about these things from our caretakers, from our ancestral lines. I come from Scottish/English/German decent and was raised in an American suburban Edward scissor hands home. It was nestled in a woodsy playground of outdoor wonder. I learned the ways of mall rats and house parties. Brand names and mini malls. Consumerism essentials. It’s a welcomed miracle that those woods called to me in their mystery and majesty. I was always into rocks and crystals. A ganga smokin hippie at 13. Buddhism introduced itself to me at 18 and breath counting meditation became something I medievally attempted, trying trying to quiet my brain and gain an understanding of the miracle of mindfulness. It didn’t work that well. I preferred to party.
Tai chi found me, Depok Chopra, the dancing Wu Lee masters, Carlos Castenada. I loved them all, but had a paradigm construct that was difficult to reconcile with these understandings. I ate way to much LSD and found myself in a dark night of my soul when the world I grew up in was being destroyed by the world I desperately wanted to understand. I still go back to this time in my life to work on some repairs. Pairing up what I thought were irreconcilable differences in worldview.
The world’s resources are not our subordinates waiting for extraction and consumption. Exactly the opposite. The world’s resources are waiting for us to take a little bit of this and connect it with something else (pairing) so that when we put the two together, the whole equals exponentially more than the sum of the parts. When we match up “tools we’ll need” with “functioning well” we are re-pairing. We’ll need these tools to work for us when the time comes to use them. If we wait to fix the tool in the moment we need it, that time may pass before the tool is sharp and ready. Procrastination backs up the bowels of life. Repairing things in advance allows the flow to continue when we need the tool or resource. When the tool is fortified and ready for use, we have forward movement in that moment. Moving backward to fix the thing, in that moment, might just move that moment out of reach. Unmet opportunity. The tool will be ready for next time. We will have spent the time late. Repairing as you go, when time allows, keeps you in the flow.
I’m often in awe of early man. How long did it take to figure fire cooks meat and creates heat but demands respect in being touched. Who figured churning milk creates butter? That flour and water baked, makes bread. And how did they experiment to figure how to make flour – from various plant forms. Thanks early man. For taking the risks. If you eat this you’ll feel strong. If you eat that you’ll die. Bitter doesn’t always mean poisonous. Plants, animals and all of creation can tell us their secrets when we tune in, when we understand their language without words. It takes time learning these ways of communicating. Well worth the patience you invest.
Books in the hopper – sidebar.
I’ve been reading Braiding Sweetgrass. Highly recommended to assist in putting back together, re-membering, the wiring that connects us to Earth’s rhythms. Maybe Earth systems are structured by Gunas, perhaps layered with the five elements and the vayus and who knows what all else. Depends on what you’re looking for, I guess. Part of the point is… You gotta know what you’re looking for. What’s your Dharma? Is it a Radical Dharma? Doesn’t matter. What matters is that you have an unwaverable knowing of what you are here for. No narcissist or power monger can throw anger or other BS on you to gaslight your mission. Keep repairing and suring up this mission so that when someone tries to make it crumble, there’s a forcefield keeping their game on their playing field. You can play in a different field protected by your preparations, by the repairs to a disconnected system. Putting back together the things we’ll need to work well when the opportunity calls us to rise and reconnect.
ShockedT 