One of the core tenants of regenerative farming is that you’re taking less from the land than what you give it. What that translates to practically is that you’re actually growing the soil, not the produce that comes from it. Insert your own personal growth metaphor here.
I had a lot of time to think about this in the past week. I got covid and isolated myself away. My symptoms were mild and I ended up spending the last 4 days tackling the most dreaded garden task. I knew I acquired enough material to make a whole lot of potting mix, but I didn’t really understood how much until I started portioning everything out. I ended up with over 2.5 cubic yards of potting mix. It’s an insane amount for a garden my size. But in the process I used up a ton of material I accumulated over time and cleared up some space. More cleaning of my outdoor space and building out a foundation for growth. All well and good, but that’s not what I was thinking about when I did all of this in mid to high 80 heat.
It’s been three months since I was laid off and I still don’t know what I want to do next. I’m privileged of course, to have the resources to not work and still be ok. I feel a certain level of guilt creeping in, but I’m learning to push that aside. What I’ve been needing is the permission to rest. Doing all of this stuff is a form of rest. Getting backlogged stuff done and not worry about having to get other things done is refreshing. Last time I had covid I took a few days off, and as soon as I was functional again I went back to working. Yay home office. This time around I gave myself permission to just rest and heal. I probably healed faster this time because I was paying more attention to how I feel. When I mentor other people I always tell them to listen to their gut. Hypocritically, it’s a thing I always aspired to but never did. I did it this time and I feel pretty good about it. I guess there’s some lesson here, but whatever. I got 2.5 yards of ridiculously good potting soil waiting for me to use.
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