Growth of the Soil - Growth of the Soul
Homegrown soul nourishment
I am random (in case you didn’t already know)
Those who know me already, or those who have been following me online for a while, will know I go against the grain a little bit. My blog post each week is no exception to that. I do not like to sit down and plan a topic, and then write it out carefully, reading it back to make sure it ‘hits the point’. There is ZERO strategy about what I write about, and I write from the heart, as it flows - I never read it back. Josh reads the blog for grammatical errors, after I have written it (normally just hours before it has to go out), and that is it. People have told me I should have a strategy, so the blog works for my website SEO and helps cement ‘my message’ via a theme, but what I have to always come back to is that my message is just this: be you, in the moment, in your truth, whatever that looks like, whatever it sounds like, authentically and without constraint, right here, right now. My message is freedom, and that does not come in a neat little box - neither do I.
I sometimes have an inkling of what I am going to write about throughout the week, leading up to my ‘as long as it is done before 1am on Sunday morning deadline’, and 50% of the time the inkling becomes ‘the thing’, the other 50%, something completely different pops in. Today is a mix. Let me explain…
My ‘growing’ story
I have always loved the idea of growing my own food. When I first lived with Josh in our little cottage in Leicestershire (we lived together after seven months of knowing one another, and had a baby about twelve months after that) I had some little bits growing in our garden, but I also took on a 40 metre allotment directly out the back of our house. I used to go with baby Caleb, tottering around, and I had a dream that as he grew we would enjoy growing our food together - my dream didn’t become a reality, because ultimately I got nothing done and ended up just chasing Caleb around as he grew, to ensure he didn’t get hurt or lost. I had to quit the allotment! When we moved to Derby I grew a little more, but mainly just peas in a metal bath, and some sorrel and strawberries. On first seeing our house here in York I fell in love with the greenhouse and the raspberry/blackberry patch - I knew this was the house I would finally grow more. Last summer was a year of getting to know the garden. The front is south facing, but also quite exposed as it looks out onto a massive open green (beautiful but not private). The raspberries grow at the front, but I realised I wouldn’t feel at home pottering at the front with passers by watching me. The greenhouse at the back became a source of confusion to me as the summer went on - nothing grew - of course it didn’t - it was in the shade all day! This year I knew we needed something new. I was doubly motivated because of my strong need to become more self-sufficient, based on the events of the world, but my vision had always been set on a ‘kitchen garden’ style garden regardless, and we made it happen. How we made it happen is a story in itself, which Josh is actually going to share next week (as he writes this section of my blog for the last week of every month).
So now we have our garden. Today I was going to write about how it makes me feel. Let me tell you quickly how it makes me feel, but I have more to share, which came as a surprise as I sat to prepare to write this earlier today.
How does it make me feel?
Alive! Connected! Grounded! At peace! In control! Full of pure joy! Purposeful!
Every morning I wake up excited to go outside. I wander round looking at each bed + each pot, spotting the changes. I look for the growth, I look what has nibbled at what overnight + therefore what needs a little more protection. I search for ripe strawberries + mange tout that are ready for the children to snack on later in the day. I assess what is growing well where, what I might adjust next year. I consider which crops are more efficient in terms of giving us food to eat for the space, versus just fun to grow, so I can be sure to know which to prioritise if I need to.
In the UK we have been lucky to have beautiful weather recently - lots of sunshine, and little to no rain. Why do I emphasise the word lucky? Because I realised as no rain came, and I steadily used up the water in my water butts, how disconnected most of us are from the elements, and the needs of human beings when they are innately connected to Mother Earth, as we used to be, and should be by nature. We have all heard of rain dances, but have we ever really felt the desperation that would lead to them? When we are truly connected to nature, and our food source, we feel the desperate need for the rain to fall, and couldn’t care less about our sun tans and alfresco dining experiences. Why do you care so much when you have a hose pipe? I hear you ask. Well I have another nuance about me: I have realised as much as I don’t want to drink water with chemicals in (hence filtering my water), I don’t want to spray my food in it either. I go to great lengths to buy organic seed and compost, to not use pesticides or herbicides, so it feels wrong to then cover my food in chlorine from the hose pipe. I had been prepared for this and ordered a hose pipe filter (from here) but when we went to fit it it didn’t work! Whilst waiting for the new one to arrive, I spent a couple of days willing rain, as I watched my plants struggle. I eventually caved and they had the chemical water, to save them from dying (all the while I watered them I apologised, explaining I was doing the best I could) but it acted as a useful lesson for me. I could at least offer them this, and with the filter I now have, I can happily water them every day, despite still having little rain - but if that water was gone, and it was my only food supply, my food would be gone too! I would not be able to feed my family! This connection humbled me, because it is the reality for many people across the world, and it is something we take for granted.
My garden has reminded me to be grateful, and to not take what we have for granted! If this last year hasn’t reminded me of that enough, this has cemented it. It has also given me even more impetus to be prepared…this week six new water butts arrived!
But how did this blog change to become about something more?
As I went to title the blog post, out of nowhere, my mind was drawn to a book by Knut Hamsun. I am sure this is an author not many of you will have heard of, but maybe I underestimate you based on my own ignorance. He was a very famous Norweigan author from the beginning of the 19th century; his most famous novel being ‘Hunger’. I only know of him because he is one of Josh’s favourite authors, and one of the first gifts he bought me was my own copy of ‘Hunger’.
I wanted this blog post to be focused around how my garden is acting as pure nourishment for my soul. All I want most of the time is to be out there, caring for it or sitting amongst it, sun or rain. The word soul is so close to the word soil it occurred to me, and then in a flash Knut Hamsun’s novel, ‘Growth of the Soil’ came into my head. I immediately went in and titled the blog post what you are reading it to be now. I was then drawn to the bookshelf where Josh keeps all of his precious books, and scanned across until I found the novel. Let me quote to you what is written on the back of the book:
“Growth of the Soil is perhaps Knut Hamsun’s best known novel and a classic of European literature. It is the story of Isak, ‘a worker on the land without respite’, which sinks its roots into man’s deepest myths about his struggle to cultivate the land and make it fertile. Rich in narrative incident, the novel moves at its own steady pace - the pace of the growth of the crops, on which the characters’ lives depend, and that of the passing seasons. Hamsun’s themes of the self and its perversion by society, and the fundamental human need to reconcile man with the natural world, speak to us even more clearly now than when the book was first published.”
Firstly, I think it is fair to say that it speaks even more clearly NOW than it did back in 1999. I was intrigued by this alone, and plan to read the book again once I have finished my current novel; I love how we are guided to what we need in the moment, but this is not what I wanted to explore here.
I had some reservations about getting ‘Josh’s’ book out because he is very careful with his belongings, and I know these books especially are precious to him. I endeavoured to be careful as I opened its pages. I flicked through gently and then noticed some writing at the front. I asked Josh if I could share what I found (and subsequently remembered); he said he would rather I didn’t, but I am hoping as he reads this for its proof read he will change his mind (notice the dirty gardening fingernails):
You can’t see the date in this photo, but it was the 5th June 2008, 12.54am! Almost exactly 13 years ago to this day, Josh was in his little bedroom at his mum’s house preparing to go to Poland with his friends. I had known him four months. That weekend, despite him not being there, I was going to travel from London to help his mum with an afternoon tea she was holding in her garden for charity. Josh left me this book on the bed for me to find when I arrived. And now here I am, over a decade later, married to him, with two children, in our own home, sitting here writing about the growth of our own soil. Not only this, but the uncertain times that Isak and his wife Inger lived in, can without doubt be paralleled with the times we live in today; times I feel so blessed to be navigating with the same man who left me this book to find on his bed, knowing in his heart, as I did too, that our story was locked at that point already.
Needless to say this whole experience today has been an emotional one for me. Thank goodness I don’t plan anything because it opens me up to these kind of experiences. It is in fact one of the reasons I don’t plan, because I trust so deeply I will always be guided to the right thing, in the right moment, in every aspect of my life.
With this trust, with this belief, this is how I experience freedom in life: freedom that is accessible to us all.
I encourage you all: go grow a garden - nourish your body, and nourish your soul. Growth of the Soil - Growth of the Soul.
With love, and in constant pursuit of truth,
Rochelle x
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