The Garden as Life

As the manager of the Buttercup Farms Garden I notice that many natural processes serve as metaphors for what’s going on with people and the organization itself.  The garden may have been overused as a metaphor for a lot of concepts, among them stewardship, renewal, potential and resilience. But it’s rare to feel that your metaphors and reality are one-in-the-same. Such is often the case for me at Buttercup.  Here are some examples:

Composting
Composting is a great metaphor for turning one’s liabilities (waste) into assets (fertilizer). At Buttercup Farms our motto is “Helping people help themselves”. We take some people who would be difficult to employ at traditional jobs and give them a chance to work in a supportive environment. My main helper at the garden is such a guy. He can only follow the most basic instructions for the most simple tasks. But not only are his liabilities offset by his energy and enthusiasm, his limited cognitive abilities have made him focus on, value and excel in tasks that many others find tedious and exhausting.  He recognizes his situation and how he is lucky to be at Buttercup. His exhilaration at digging a trench or rototilling is instructive if not inspiring for many of us. So what many view as his deficiencies become both his and our assets.
 

Managing a garden:

As a garden manager I am a steward of growth and production. Organization, timing, attentiveness without obsession and sustenance without excess are each aspects of my job that have direct parallels to the raising of children, animals and societies. 

Potential of a seed:
There is amazing energy and life in a seed. I see it everyday in the greenhouse as the seedlings push their way up through the soil, transforming into complex organisms from nondescript granules. The first time this lesson was expressed in literature may have been when Jesus comments on the potential of the mustard seed in the New Testament. Engrained in any seemingly insignificant seed is the DNA to become all the traits and functions of a plant. If I see the seed as depicting the unformed potential of some people my life, it makes me realize how I may be underestimating what they can truly be.

Renewal every season:

Without the perspective of experience the winter garden can seem to be a depressing landscape of death and inertia. But with the spring comes the sun and the longer days. The detritus of the past year nurtures the soil and the plants begin to emerge. Life begins again. So a new year or a new direction in life can be seen as a new season in the garden- having potential because of the “composted” past failures which “fertilize” or inform the present. The potential for new beginnings is always there. All it needs is the same nurturing that some might unconsciously give the failures of the past. You can decide to water the old weeds of negative self-talk -  or start your garden anew, watering the healthy crops and reaping the bounty of affirmation. It’s your choice.

At least part of each day at the garden is spent in this strange, sometimes frustrating, sometimes wonderful place between where metaphor ends and reality begins.

When I’m at my best and open to the garden’s “teachings”,  working in the garden is living out a poem that I write with nature’s help.

Gary Crandall