It’s officially Autumn. The slanted light cuts through the sky to wash the world in gold. This year, more than many others, I’m remembering to stop and notice. It’s easy for mind to get tangled in the muck of the newsfeed . Sometimes it takes all I have to remember what’s right in front of me. But the other day I stood as a friend dug up root vegetables from the soil, where they were growing tucked into the dark.
I decided to stay focused on what’s in front of me (as opposed to the stories in my head: the latest tweet or outrageousness to emerge from the news). At first look, the clump of dry brown dirt was kind of ugly, just like so many of my stressful beliefs about how things aren’t right. But (I reminded myself) my job was to watch. And it seemed like these particular carrots gradually appeared to remind me of something important. Of hope. I wrote this right afterwards:
Finding Carrots
It doesn’t take a lot of watching for the beautiful, gnarled, brilliance of carrot to Become.
What happens below the soil line in the depths of the darkness is an alchemy that we come to trust.
When the swollen roots are unearthed, sheathed in dirt still, even then the miracle of beauty remains hidden.
In a handful of dirt and a few undefined rheumatoid clumps.
But beneath that ugly surface there they are: waiting safely until the time is right,
until the right hand comes along that will carry them to light, to water, who will dice through their tender hearts and reveal
the glowing fuse at the miraculous center of life.
