Taking root in the good Earth

Following almost two weeks of warmer weather, a flush of early spring flowers are blooming. Red and yellow Tulips, white-blue and purple Violets, Grape Hyacinths and some remaining Daffodils are abundant. Flowering trees are bursting into bloom, including white Star Magnolia, pinkish-white Cherries, White Bradford Pears and others. From our hollow, we are harvesting wild chives that grow as weeds throughout our community; from the woods, we are harvesting garlic-flavored Ramps to become part of an omelet with pieces of canned tomatoes, mushrooms, cheese and local eggs.

After a very rainy winter, March and April have been dry. With our unusually stable warm spell and nights without frost, Sugar Magnolia trees—usually burnt by frost in our community—are reaching full bloom. The moisture left in the ground and warm temperatures have done wonders to the garden, where lettuces, arugula, kale, spinach, mustard, turnips, beets, onions, carrots, garlic, peas and parsley are all flourishing with early growth.

After years of growing the garden, we’ve discovered that some vegetables do well, particularly greens, while crops that need more depth or greater fertility, like tubers, large radishes and cabbage, do poorly. Over the years of improving the soil with compost and manure and experimenting with different crops, we’ve learned what our garden likes to grow and what is presently outside its limits.

Just as we learned what is compatible with the Earth, I’ve learned what I’m compatible with as a sensitive person. Though I work with violent men, puritans and money-chasers, each in their own way are not compatible with my deeply felt emotions and desires for a peaceful, harmonious, sustainable and equitable world.

While I strive to see the good qualities of these individuals and to learn what I can from them, it is difficult to socialize with them—their emotions are simply too rough and callous for me; what they seem to want out of life and the life choices they make because of that make absolutely no sense to me.

As I explored the human world as a young adult, I found that the community my wife and I are now in was compatible with my sensitivity and ideals. This was an important lesson to apply to my life. When I returned decades ago after working elsewhere to rebuild my life economically, I found that not only did the community support my needs as a sensitive person, but it was also a refuge for artists, activists, seekers and others attempting to create a new way of life. Among these idealistic people was my wife, who I fortunately met in this colony of sensitive people.

As our lives passed in our community, I learned that some webs of life bring out our best, healthiest, happiest futures while others do not. This question—where and with whom we choose to live—is central to the fulfillment of our higher selves and, like the soil of the garden, is as important at the seeds of good works that we attempt to plant.

If we choose unwisely, partnerships and communities can become sources of hardship and crises, as commonly happens when addicted partiers or domineering and dependent people come together as partners. Just as I learned from a book given to me by a stepdaughter that companion planting of parsley and carrots near tomatoes fosters growth, human companionships and communities can help or hinder us. This is especially important for sensitive people, who are a minority in patriarchy and have needs that the mainstream culture ignores.

For sensitive people, recognizing where we fit and where people appreciate our good works is essential. A dependent person can waste years kowtowing to a domineering, ungrateful person; “social working” women, as my wife calls them, can spend years trying to save someone from their addictions and other self-created problems, only to find that their good will has been used to rob them of years of spiritual generosity. Giving up on relationships and communities that don’t work for us is crucial.

My own view of our present culture is shaped by the knowledge that as a man who is attempting to be sensitive and reach out toward the sacred Feminine that I no longer fit into the larger human world. Finding a community where I can thrive has been an extremely fortunate gift that I received even before I was conscious of my own sensitivity.

In the larger world, incompatible personalities, like partiers verses puritans and violent men verses sensitive people, have traditional rivalries spanning generations. The challenge for us is to learn from the better parts of these rival people while protecting ourselves from harm they might do.

For many, it is common to jump from one aspect to another as our lives progress. Many partiers become puritans to control addictions; some violent men have sensitive inner selves arise and react into pacifism or similar points of view; some money chasers become philanthropists or activists. In my life, the personality transformation beginning in my psychosis allowed my inner sensitivity to emerge, making the crises of that time one of the most important spiritual gifts of my life. Those perilous times led me to the family, community and life I have today.

For all our differences, each of us face deep spiritual challenges that are the true substance of our lives. Finding friends, families and communities that support our better selves is as crucial to us as the compost we put in the garden is to the seeds we plant. It is in our personal web of life that our most important choices—who we share our lives with—has the most powerful impact. Our lives may seem minor in the larger world, yet they are the place where we can apply our ideals and seek our dreams most directly. Consciously choosing who we share our lives with and how we can make each other’s lives better determines most of what we will harvest from our lives.