Compost

Easter makes me think about compost. I shared this in Quaker meeting this morning, and the round beautiful newly constructed room we were sitting in bellowed with laughter. But the idea is rich. It is metaphor for the stuff beneath the beautiful birth of the season. My atheist friends might consider the value in the transformational aspect of this metaphor. And my Christian friends might admit that they too find healing and salvation in a most profound metaphor. The idea is that we are reborn this time of year, but not just that, we are cleansed, healed, transformed, and saved by a poetic truth. I think the thing that makes it all so true is in the evidence of healing and transformation. But death, compost, must exist to fuel and feed our newly transformed selves, and bring about birth and hope. Another metaphor that I embody and pray to is that of the moon. I honor the fact that there are cycles to the moon, and that there is most definitely a dark side. The glowing bright surface that reflects the warm rays and shines them through the night would not exist without the dark shadows that are on the other side. It is round and cyclical, and in order to be all the different shapes and sizes that it becomes, there must exist the shadow.

There is pain in the story of Christ. We are aware of the suffering that he endured. In the end he died and was reborn and became a story. It is a healing story that we tell ourselves and our children every spring along with jelly beans and colorful eggs. He is risen as they say. We rise and are reborn out of the darkness of winter. We are ready to dig up our compost, our pain and suffering, our sins, our trauma, and sacrifice it so that a new day/ birth can occur. In the end it is a profound metaphor, and human beings have prayed to metaphor for thousands upon thousands of years. There is mythology, fairy tales, ghost stories, and fables, that all teach us something through a story or metaphor. I learned recently of a medieval tale that is also a line from Hamlet. “The owl is the baker’s daughter.” It is also the title of a book by Marion Woodman wherein she discusses addiction, conscious-femininity, and jungian psychoanalytic practice. The story as I understand it, is about the daughter of a baker that turns away a beggar at the door, and then her whole house becomes overwhelmed with rising dough that is out of control. In the end she is turned into an owl. As I understand, the dough represents the feminine. The abstract. The metaphor. It becomes so out of balance because it is being starved from existence through her prudish act. The mother is meant to give and share. Our society is full of a sort of patriarchal narcissism that restricts the power of the true feminine.

The darkness or compost that I am speaking of could also represent the feminine. In a way, the mother dies, or at least gives so much of herself to carry and birth a child. The child, baby, or birth of whatever, needs great nourishment and care. We can only give to this new birth if we have made peace with our past, our compost. We can only grow in the moment and into the future, if we are not being held captive in our minds and bodies by our sins and traumas. In healing our pain and darkness, we can find endless food in the compost of our experiences and our struggles. Christ has always been a metaphor. A metaphor of death and birth that brings on healing change in our lives. But the message of struggle is very real. How can we benefit and grow from our pain and trauma, and not have it weigh us down in debilitation? Christians would tell you that Christ died for that sin and pain, and was resurrected so that you could find peace. Perhaps the message is simply that death and struggle feeds and brings new life. The story implies incredible magic taking place in the metaphor of birth from death. And I arrive again at compost. It is all compost… my trash, my psychological and physical trauma, my mental illness, my addiction. My curse can be my blessing. My illness my gift, my creative source. So, I give thanks today. I am thankful for the beautiful space that has been built by loving hands that lives now at Sunnyfield Farm, my family home for thirty five years. May the blessings be received on the land and especially in all of the people that visit and share their experience in the new space. All of us have composted longing, and now are embraced by loving community. The food for our soul lies within. Sometimes dormant, sometimes painfully obvious. But it is food. It is compost wanting to feed our spiritual transformation. And we are in it together.