Earth Etude for Elul 29 – Farmers of Our Souls
by Molly Bajgot~
something that the earth knows well
is our attempts to conquer, manipulate, and control her.
in this High Holy season,
in the return to oneself,
we are asked to abstain from the conquering,
manipulating and controlling —
that it may lead to understanding our impulses for doing so:
to each other, the earth, other beings, and our own soul.
we have a task, this Holy season,
to do teshuvah —
to relinquish, however micro or macro we can –
the impulses and ways we farm our subconscious and conscious minds
with seeds that have been handed to us
back in times of vulnerability or fear,
that have since grown thick underfoot,
convincingly planted in the soil of our own hearts,
gone unmarked with sharpie and popsicle stick
to remember them by, as ‘non-native.’
As young farmers of our souls,
may we weed out what has been strewn in the rows of our own homes:
the ones that we sowed and so wanted to reap from —
for we heard they would profit.
but those folks were not prophets,
and it turns out our own local weeds are now high on the market.
we can choose to
reclaim, recultivate, reinvite our main birth crop
back to our home —choose now to carry it to term,
brilliant and unshaking
and not calling it a weed, but calling it ourselves.
when we give way to this difference —
we’re met with new blooms and potent fragrance
scents that snap us back to something ancient and unkempt,
so familiar, like our first days of life.
though perhaps now we can perhaps see,
stepping back, taking in our new garden minds,
how on this planet
we give credence to the monocropped, manufactured seeds
so orderly and pleasant looking
so similar to each other —
so not of our own —
when we look towards ourselves
this Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur,
may we seek to identify
what serves to be uprooted and left to dry in the paths
in the last solar days of summer, this season.
may we seek to identify what of our sister heart
we’ve left untended to in this last year of life.
may we rush to her, bolting to term, to save her seed
in peak of our fall days —
let her be
carried by wind to the four corners, no,
seven corners of our soul,
multiplying further, from the tips of our
eyebrows to the tips of our toes,
always whispering to her, “you deserve to be cherished.”
know, young farmer, that this toil is not unmet with merit:
that years from now, after this weeding and reselecting of the seeds of your soul
you will not need any new seed — for she will become again
your natural cropping
blooming time and time again each season,
already harvested,
already sewn,
in to the sleeve of your soul
coming home
becoming whole.
amen.
Molly Bajgot is a Jewish singer-songwriter currently living in Western Massachusetts. She is a lover of music, healing arts, and the outdoors. When she gets the chance to do these things together, she feels at home. Being in the garden is a place of mystery and metaphor for her. She loves to craft ritual, and to be in community both as a member and as an organizer. She looks forward to molding all these passions together into a career throughout her life.
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