21 Comments
User's avatar
Webb Bierbrier's avatar

Positive aging reminds me a little of soil.

When it’s cared for, soil gets richer with time full of life, nutrients and the ability to grow new things.

I like to think our lives work the same way. The years add layers like experiences, lessons, people and even the hard seasons.

Tend the soil well, and growth doesn’t stop. 🌱

While I Grieve's avatar

I thought of it as the memories that build us. Your reading makes even more of it.

Ink and Light by Nat Hale's avatar

What a great way of reading the piece. Thank you

Linnea Butler ✨'s avatar

I love this piece Nat. I have always loved the smell of dark, rich, loamy soil and you are so right that our beautiful flowers would not exist without nourishment and composting. Lovely extension of the garden metaphor. 💜🌱

Ink and Light by Nat Hale's avatar

Nothing in life is ever wasted . .

Cory's avatar

This was so lovely Nat! I love thinking we need to tend our own soil.

Everyone says the grass is greener, but we can have the greener grass by taking care of our own yard. 😊

Ink and Light by Nat Hale's avatar

An the best thing of all is that it our waste (literally) that feeds the soil

Cory's avatar

Take a squat on our lawns then?

Kidding. 😊

Ink and Light by Nat Hale's avatar

now need to kid. The urine is too strong for grass it will leave a mark, but weeing into the hedge or on to beds is a great way of putting nitrogen back into the soil. All gardeners do it. We can’t keep taking from the soil if we give nothing back, but the earth calls for our waste

Nicole Smith's avatar

Once again it fascinates me how you as a gardener understand the language of flowers and earth, like my husband. For me it's music and singing that provide my fundamental metaphors for life, personal growth, and relationships. Humans are all so interesting in how we understand reality.

Ink and Light by Nat Hale's avatar

I think we all have our thing. For as long as I can remember Gardens have been my space, where I feel me

Hina Gondal's avatar

I love the smell of wet soil 🫶

Jess Maeve's avatar

This is beautiful. 🤩 💜

I have recently found the imagery of tilling the soil to be quite appropriate for my healing journey, using it in some of my yet unpublished writings. I offer you this portion of a piece I wrote back in September as your poem here took me into pondering mode and a revisit to mine.

“….. the greatest mercy of kindness

is also a key for unlocking the secret garden’s gate

where heavenly abundance may be reaped

from the potential planted under harvest moons

I tilled the soil

turned the dirt with my hands

when there were no other tools

I pulled each weed up at the root

accounted for the damage done….”

Ink and Light by Nat Hale's avatar

That is beautiful Jess, thank you. I will look it up

Jess Maeve's avatar

I had to double check if I had even posted it, as I wrote it right around the time I was starting my Substack account. But I found it…. here you go: https://substack.com/@jessmaeve/note/c-153353720?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=5zk3yx

M J's avatar

I have truly learned so many life lessons through gardening. Indeed, the condition of the soil is everything! Great post.

While I Grieve's avatar

Love, love, love the line about turning over the soil, finding the collapse of last years’ leaves, the soft black threads of something already gone. It felt like what you find whilst planting something new. Posted that part, hope that’s ok!

Ink and Light by Nat Hale's avatar

Of course. I am glad you liked the piece.

HVR's avatar

I don't think about how soil comes from the end of others.

It makes sense.

I've just never stopped to think.

Ink and Light by Nat Hale's avatar

Nothing is ever wasted.