I Want A Heart of Garlic

Garlic's POV at sunset

This is my fourth year to have garlic's green sprouts breaking Earth's brown skin.  I continue to find myself mesmerized by the magic of how garlic grows.  Scientist-types of course would be quick to point out there's nothing magic about growing garlic for the credit belongs to soil, sun, rain and nutrients.

Garlic is still magic to me.  I am mesmerized by the fact that over eight months time one small clove can morph into 7-8 cloves clumped together providing the kick we savor on pizza, veggies, scrambled eggs and all kinds of things.

Garlic feeds me in all kinds of ways.  

I look at the word clove and c-love (see love).  If I can c-love in the darkest of people, acts and times then my heart of compassion and my mind of understanding will grow and multiply like the cloves of garlic in my yard outside. To C-love is the key to returning to relationship with rather than having power over.

Who decided to call it a 'head' of garlic anyway?  Why not a heart?  I'm not surprised it's a head as over the centuries, the head's gotten way out of proportion to the heart in our world. Valuing reason and thinking over the emotional and intuitive experience has gotten us to this place of such deep divides.

Divine Love is like a clove of garlic in Time's dark soil, stretching, expanding and morphing into multiple cloves. We have reached the end of Time's long night.  Love has been waiting.  Love is ready to be harvested, gently pulled from the shadows and the dark.  Divine Love is ready to be brought into the Light from the dark, yet magic Earthen Universe.

When I look at my garlic beds, I C-love and think, "I want a heart of garlic with a head, a thoughtful, open head of garlic on the side."

-Dawn, The Good News Muse at "Imagine the Shift" 30 June 2013
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Green Beans of Wonder

Have you ever awakened with food on your mind?

I awoke recently with green beans on mine, not just any green beans, but my own.  I was still savoring their taste from the day prior when eight had been my meal gently boiled with the last of last summer's garlic and five quarter-size potatoes (that were not mine) all held in a little brown bowl thrown by Thor at Sparta's Fragrant Mushroom. 

The week before I had been in the grocery buying green beans impulsively not realizing mine were of eating size. 

I so prefer being in my little raised beds over being in the grocery.  I have heard Jean Houston refer to needing to teach children 'whole system processes.'  She explained what she meant but it wasn't until growing and eating my green beans that I got it. I am an adult just learning about whole system processes which is why I am often filled with the wonder and magic of life. To mindfully be involved from planting to preparing is sacred. 

Growing things feeds me.  I do not grow enough to feed myself physically but the feeding I receive is the soul food of experience that for me at least can't be found in the grocery aisle.  

Yet this week as I awoke with beans on my mind the part I was taken with related to the bodily satisfaction I experienced as I ate one bean at a time.  (I do not usually eat one bean at a time, do you?)

A place in my core felt soulful, bodily satisfaction.  It was the taste as well as knowing this tangible, tender green thing before me, then in me, was a cooperative venture resulting over time involving nurturing and nature. 

"Little Farma" is about the relational whether you're growing just a bit like me in raised beds or buying food from local farmers. 

The next time a bite of something is on your fork, stop for a moment to consider your relationship to what is about to become a part of you.  Have you been a part of it? Don't judge. Be mindful.  Wonder.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 28 June 2013

dawn@imaginetheshift.com