Illumination

July 9th, 2021 | Click to Comment

For a few minutes in the early morning, the angle of light from the sun, the tree line out back, the frame of a particular window and doorway, all align perfectly to send a shard of light across the kitchen counter. It illuminates a simple notepad I keep there. This narrow pointer of sunlight travels through the house from another room—an alignment that happens only around the summer solstice.

I’m still learning the light in this house and across this bit of land. Even now as I write, the changing angle of light illuminates a small brass nail on the oak floor. It must have fallen there, unnoticed, in a recent round of hanging art on the wall. For a moment the nail is easy to see, though when the light changes it will disappear again.

This week I read David Whyte’s “The House of Belonging.” There’s a subtle trinity in this poem—of wholeness in oneself, belonging, and connection. Whyte’s words embody a peace that comes from knowing that even in solitariness, he’s not alone. His sense of belonging comes from the connection of the soul to its source, to the mystery and beauty of all things, and to life itself. This connection to life is a connection to his own depths. It imbues every interaction with meaning and vitality. The sense of belonging that arises from this deep presence connects him to his home and the “housely angels” that dwell there. The feeling of belonging also connects him to those he loves, whom he welcomes into his home and his life. Belonging fosters an open heart, where others can belong.

Whyte is describing a moment of transcendence when he can see how his life is connected to a greater reality. Sometimes we can see the connection; sometimes we can’t. The golden threads that link our lives to the divine and to one another only show up when the light is just right. In the holy moments when we are most alive, these sacred threads of connection are illuminated. They show us the beauty of our lives. We see them in the light of a poem, a conversation, a loving touch, an image, a ritual, a prayer, a moment of beauty, or countless other ways.

We so easily lose sight of those golden threads. The light shifts, and the sense of wholeness and belonging that they bring seems to disappear. We forget that we’re connected; we lose track of how much our lives matter. It’s an illusion, of course. The golden threads remain as surely as that brass nail on the wooden floor, hidden in plain sight.

Walk on this earth with bare feet, connected to the ground, feeling for the sharp edges, the prick of the nail’s point. Watch for a new angle of light, revealing what is right there, the truth in plain sight that we’re finally able to see.

Susan Christerson Brown

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Attending to What Matters

June 19th, 2021 | 2 Comments

A strong thunderstorm blew through the neighborhood a few days ago. It felled a massive maple tree that had offered shade on my regular walking route for years. But I’m just a newcomer. That maple had been part of the landscape for generations.

The huge tree seemed solid and enduring. The strength and stability amassed during all its years of growth appeared unassailable. But the power of the storm revealed otherwise. Its heartwood was rotten, and the appearance of strength belied the tree’s ill health.

The house beneath the tree was spared, fortunately, because of the direction of the wind. When the trunk splintered several feet above ground, it fell toward the street. Had it toppled in the other direction it would have crashed through the roof.

Now that the broken remains of the trunk are exposed to the light, it’s easy to see that the tree should have been removed years ago. But it would have been difficult to muster the will to remove such a magnificent presence. The branches offered welcome shade in the summer and glorious foliage in the fall. There must have been signs that the tree was unhealthy, though I certainly didn’t notice. It’s easy to let such things go for another week, another season, another year. Surely it will be ok a little longer. Until it isn’t.

Was it unimaginable that such a tree would violently break? Certainly not, though apparently the owner of the property didn’t see this coming. Or didn’t want to.

One of our most powerful resources is our attention. Where we direct our attention influences how we use our energy. “Where attention goes, energy flows.” What we pay attention to, and what we ignore, shapes our lives. We can choose what we will attend to, or allow our attention to be directed by longtime habits of thought, emotion, and behavior, along with the urgencies of daily life.

Internally, the things we habitually focus on (and ignore) compel us to keep repeating the same old patterns. Externally, all kinds of voices clamor for a foothold in our minds. Our wiser self knows what we need to pay attention to, but it takes real effort to hold on to that awareness. We need some kind of daily practice to stay connected to what our best self knows.  

When we’re not paying attention to our lives, we miss what’s really going on. We overlook the new growth asking to be cultivated, and ignore the danger of familiar but rotten practices whose time is finished.  

In order to be present to our lives we must be present to ourselves. There is no clarity about what’s happening in our interactions with others or in the events of our days unless we’re also aware of what’s going on within. Attending to our inner self allows us to see more clearly and respond more effectively to what’s happening in the world. It makes us less susceptible to manipulation, and frees us from the patterns that confine us.

Life is all about change. It’s easy to miss those changes unless we can be fully present, receptive to what’s really going on. Bringing our attention to what’s happening in this moment, rather than getting caught in our familiar thoughts and emotions, allows us to see what’s in front of us more clearly.

Maybe there’s something we need to do differently. Maybe there are aspects of how we live that were once solid but now need to be removed. Showing up fully, with the courage to pay attention, is an act of love. It’s when we’re truly present that we can perceive accurately, respond appropriately, and do what needs to be done.

Susan Christerson Brown

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The Enneagram and Forgiveness

June 7th, 2021 | Click to Comment

Forgiveness is a balm that restores our hearts and our relationships. Sometimes we experience pain, sometimes we inflict it upon others. The healing power of forgiveness is part of living a full and abundant life.

We can learn to give and receive forgiveness when we learn to see ourselves and others with more clarity, and less judgment. Engaging with forgiveness depends on bringing compassionate presence to what hurts—to our own wounds as well as the wounds of others.

When we’ve been hurt we need to respond, and our emotions give us energy and information about what to do. But when chronic anger and pain take over, they drain our life force. Keeping the old story of those episodes going requires a lot of energy and claims much of our attention. Ruminating and replaying is a response to being harmed that can cause us further injury. It’s like continuing to pump a spinning top. Perpetuating that circular movement is mesmerizing, and there’s a satisfying sense of balance from seeing the world spin ‘round and ‘round that same axis even if it doesn’t get us anywhere.

Learning to recognize such unhelpful patterns allows us to break free of them. The Enneagram is the best way I know for making our way along that path. It helps us become aware of our blind spots, and to appreciate the motivations behind the actions of other people in our lives. Learning to recognize our habitual patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior allows us to notice when they’re taking over, pause instead of automatically reacting, and allow whatever arises in us without being driven into our habitual behavior. These intentional actions create the space for choosing our response rather than reacting automatically.  Our patterns can keep us stuck; relaxing them allows us to see more clearly and respond more effectively.

The Enneagram teaches that we rely on three basic kinds of intelligence—mental, physical, and emotional. All three of these centers of awareness inform our ability to give and receive forgiveness.

In our mental awareness we hold onto particular ways of remembering and interpreting our experience. Our patterns of thought (including our critical, judging minds) influence how we understand our lives and where we focus our attention.

Physically, we carry not only bodily injuries but emotional traumas. They are stored in the tissues of the body and embedded in our nervous system. It affects what we find ourselves doing, as well as our physical health.

In our heart we carry the emotional pain and distress of what happened. When the pain is too much, we harden our hearts to avoid feeling it. This cuts us off from feeling connected to life and to other people.  

This mental, emotional, and spiritual suffering becomes chronic tension in the body, which blocks our life energy, distorts our ability to see clearly, and causes further injury. These maladies are eased as we grow beyond them and find ourselves able to forgive.

But trying to forgive too quickly, avoiding the pain of what happened, is more of a spiritual bypass than authentic, healing forgiveness. There is often something to be grieved in the process of forgiveness. To forgive because we think we should is the act of an ego determined to do the right thing. Forgiveness is more like finding out that we can release what we once believed held us tightly in its grip.

When we can forgive, we stop magnifying the wrong. We stop giving the one who wronged us so much power.

Forgiveness grows naturally as we develop compassion and understanding. Forgiveness is not an act of egoic will; it’s an opening of the heart that allows forgiveness to unfold. When we’re trying to manage our lives according to the defenses and fears of the ego, we aren’t able to extend forgiveness—to others or to ourselves. As we relax the type patterns of the ego, we make space for a genuine sense of connection and trust and belonging. The simple practice of bringing our attention to what we’re grateful for helps in making that shift.

C. G. Jung observed that we don’t so much solve our problems as outgrow them. This can include our ability to offer or receive forgiveness.

Forgiveness does not condone the wrong. Forgiveness does not say it’s ok, or that it didn’t matter. Forgiveness acknowledges the harm and grieves its cost. It means finding a place to stand apart from the emotion and pain. Forgiveness involves holding our suffering with the stronger, wiser, and more loving arms of our higher Self. Or put another way, allowing our hurting self to be held in the loving arms of God.

When we experience how much more we are than our wounded selves, we have a chance to see how the other person is more than the wounding agent. In offering forgiveness we see the other person with the eyes of compassion; we see them as more than an agent of pain. When we are the ones who cause the wounds, we learn to show ourselves that same compassion; we hold tenderly our own suffering as well as that of others.

Either way, we see the damage that results when we’re caught in our own drama, flailing in a way that vectors pain. We can ground ourselves in the truth that our life is bigger than this difficult part of our story, and we can let that top spin down.

Susan Christerson Brown

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Awakening

March 31st, 2021 | Click to Comment

First thing this morning, there was a list running in my head of tasks that needed attention right away, or so I believed. I made my way to the kitchen in robe and slippers, reaching automatically to switch off the lamppost out front. The inner productivity police were telling me I was already behind—not a very kind or peaceful way to begin the day.

But outside the window, past the lamppost, my neighbor’s saucer magnolia was in full bloom. Lit by the rising sun, branches and blooms leaning languidly over the drive, the tree’s abundant flowers spilled onto the ground below. The sight lifted me above the weary trails in my mind, and awakened me to the beauty of the morning.

That tree hadn’t worried as it weathered the winter; it didn’t fret about whether it would bloom. It didn’t resist coming to life in the early spring. It didn’t tell itself that opening its buds was too hard, or question its own timing when the days turned warmer. It didn’t judge the number of blossoms on its branches, or their color and size.

Instead, it simply allowed the sap to rise and the buds to form and the sun to invite them to open. It didn’t “do” anything. It certainly didn’t force anything. It allowed life and the season to flow through it.

And today, that beautiful magnolia invited me to do the same.

May it be so.

Susan Christerson Brown

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Transitioning into the New Year

January 6th, 2021 | Click to Comment

I would love to be looking forward into the new year with energy and clarity. It would be great to be moving ahead, powered by a sense of direction and a spirit of taking charge. But what I’m feeling is that I’m behind already.

Over the holidays it felt wonderful to check out from the news and the routines and even the Zoom connections that carried me through the prior months. Resting from them makes clear the effort that they all require. Now the gears are creaking as I try to get going again.

Transitions are hard for toddlers, and maybe they don’t really get any easier. We simply learn to soldier on. With the new year underway, it’s time for plans and schedules. The unopened door into the work that I have yet to begin is daunting as always. I have to remind myself that the work most always ends up being do-able once I walk through that door. It’s just a matter of turning the knob and leaning in.

Like all of us, my particular circumstances are set against our larger societal challenges. Bearing up in the current climate requires some effort in itself. There’s a race out there between the vaccine distribution channels and the new, more contagious, strain of coronavirus. I had internalized what felt ok to do, the volume of traffic in a store that felt safe to enter. Not much felt ok. Now the level of contagion is worse and I no longer have that sense of what’s safe. The virus is moving faster and the vaccine seems to be rolling out in slow motion, getting no closer to me at all. It’s a terrible thing when trying to live with good, responsible judgment seems indistinguishable from living in fear. And now there’s the chaos in Washington, too.

For weeks I’ve held onto how Rabbi Ari Saks recently described the meaning of Hanukkah. It speaks directly to this time. He says that lighting the menorah celebrates a victory in the midst of a larger battle, the outcome of which is yet unknown. It’s an act of faith, a way of drawing strength and courage from the small sources of light along our path. It’s also an act of courage to name what we hope for, to tend it, and to work for it.

That’s where we are as this year begins. There is hope and good news, but the shot in the arm is not here yet. There’s a new vision and leadership, but the transfer hasn’t happened. We’re in between the promise and the manifestation, and we persevere.

Once a week I tune in for a guided meditation offered by a wise teacher named Marion Gilbert. During her Monday Meditations I experience my burdens being lifted. It shifts my perception in a way that lets me feel absolutely carried and supported, with a perspective that allows me to be completely at peace. It works on my psyche just like smoothing an animal’s fur.

My worrying mind wants to be in charge. It thinks it should be in charge, yet has no capacity to change much of anything. My strongest agency comes from where I place my attention and what I choose. The best choice is to find that solid place to stand where I can observe the mind doing what it does, and be aware all the while that reality is bigger than what the worrying mind is able to perceive. That’s when I can remember that I’m being carried into the new year, that it’s not all up to me, and that ultimately all will be well.

Peace be with you.

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What this Season Teaches

November 9th, 2020 | Click to Comment

Through all the challenges of this season, the beauty of autumn has restored me almost daily. In the isolation brought by the pandemic, changing colors offer something new in every walk through the neighborhood. Through the divisive political climate, the trees present a cyclical drama where everything has its season. Even, or especially, amidst the painful realities of the time we’re in, nature is a healer. The landscape itself compels us to savor these glorious days for the short time we have them.

I love the towering shimmer of tulip poplar leaves, stirred by the breeze like ripples in a golden stream. I’m in awe of the maple’s golden-red foliage, translucent in the sun, like the glow of stained glass in afternoon light. Holly berries redden, pinecones open, burnished acorns fall from the oak. Each tree in its own way yields to the turning of seasons, again and again and again. The reassuring rhythm is a balm for anxious days.

In the tender days of a difficult year, this beauty touches me more profoundly than ever. When I allow the natural world to speak, my heart responds. I’m reminded of what I’d forgotten: I love this land, with its proliferation of life and growth and beauty. I love its forests and orchards, its fields and gardens, its grazing acres and neighborhood lawns. I love the variety of what grows here—the feast of color and shape, texture and size, rooted in the local soil of each one’s unique place.

The hues of this season sing of abundance, with the dazzling specificity of each particular shade. May this array of beauty speak to our hearts; may its diversity show us what can grow. May this glorious outpouring of life teach us generosity, and may the words we speak to one another be carried forth on the breath of love.

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Finals Week

October 26th, 2020 | Click to Comment

Many years ago when I was an undergrad, I learned that the week of final exams was a time of great anxiety. The dorm’s common rooms filled with study groups, and solitary students hunched over their desks late into the night. Across long tables in dining halls we commiserated about upcoming tests and unwritten papers. (We scarcely noticed the cafeteria dishes clattering in the background as other people prepared our food and cleaned up afterwards.) It was the crucible of the semester’s end. Fashionable girls abandoned blow-dry styles for ponytails, and went about bare-faced, attired in sweatshirts. The library tables were full, and everyone looked stressed.

My senior year I lived off campus, in a neighborhood where no one else was in college. The strangest thing happened. During finals week I had some exams. I studied. I wrote papers. I worked hard and I finished. The drama I believed was part of finals was entirely missing. No pervasive anxiety anywhere, except when I showed up to take a test. For the first time I understood that the concentration of worried students on campus created its own separate atmosphere, a storm cloud looming over the dorms and classrooms.

The time we’re in feels something like being caught under that storm cloud. Certainly, there’s more at stake than a student GPA, and the expanse of unease is far beyond the reach of a college campus. But the principle is the same. On a national scale, we’re creating this atmosphere as we amplify each other’s anxiety.

The news is intense right now. I listen to NPR on the radio while I’m cooking, read online newspapers over coffee, watch news on tv in the evening, and try to keep up with The Atlantic magazine here and there. The routine of all this news-gathering has a soothing regularity, despite the distressing content. The state of our nation is a topic of urgent conversation over Zoom or in person. But all of this takes a toll.

Our collective emotional pitch is creating the reality we’re living, and it’s not good for us. It keeps us on edge, affects our relationships and our health, and creates a climate where disinformation can easily take hold.

I’ve had to learn to recognize when I’ve hit my limit for news, and more importantly, how to step away from that anxious mindset. Though at this point I can’t walk a few blocks to reach a different climate, I’m finding that walking a few blocks helps anyway.

Different things help different people. In this final week before the election, it’s a good time to be intentional about cultivating some peace of mind. How can you allow yourself at least a few minutes a day to rest from the rising anxiety? Is there a place where you can be in nature? Is there a project you enjoy working on? Is there a friend with whom you enjoy spending time? Is there something new you’d like to learn? Can you revive your mindfulness practice?

In that last, quiet undergraduate year, I missed the excitement of finals week on campus, just a little. What I actually missed was being caught up in the shared experience with my classmates. For all the distress, we were going through something important that bound us together.

I know now that I could have helped myself and others if I had been less overtaken by the hive mind. I could have made more of a contribution if I had more perspective on the hive’s anxiety. I could have offered the genuine assurance that we simply had to do the work in front of us, and the reminder that a few deep breaths would make it easier.

That’s true now, as well. We can’t control events, but we have a great deal of choice in how we respond to them. We can choose where to put our energy and attention. We can recall how we’ve been carried through other difficult times in our lives, and allow that to give us a better perspective. If each of us can keep our balance individually, it will help bring peace when we need it most.

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In the Midst of It

September 20th, 2020 | Click to Comment

After half a year of guarding against the coronavirus, there’s no longer much that feels novel about it. We’re all learning to live with the isolation and limitation, along with the toll it takes. I feel like a potbound plant. Yet just as roots pushing against their container force new growth above the soil, the constriction of these days pushes me to leaf out in new ways, even as I long for life to open up again.

I’ve learned about sewing masks over these long months since the pandemic took hold. My first efforts were pleated rectangles, stitched on the machine one after another like a banner of prayer flags. In those early, frightening days when masks were nearly impossible to find, each was a supplication for safety, offered to and for my loved ones.

The masks I make now fit better, and there are many other places to find them. Maybe I’ll attempt another round with a new design, but these days I’m weary of the project and the clutter. It’s time to clear the dining room table, piled with the fabric, interfacing, and allergen filter I’ve experimented with. I designated a box for keeping my tools and materials at hand. Like the fears that arrived with the virus, they’re not quite put away but no longer sprawling everywhere.

In this and so many other ways, we’re living in the in-between. Covid has imposed strange, yet increasingly familiar, routines even as it remains long way from being over. The end, so far, isn’t even in sight.

I would have thought that my imposed solitude should yield more creative work, and more plans for teaching. After all, the quiet is something writers and contemplatives long for. But for much of the summer, I haven’t been able to settle on what project to take up next, or what kind of plans to be putting in place.

I remember months ago considering paths to choose from, different directions in which to focus my attention. New possibilities surely still exist, but at this point there is nothing to illuminate the path forward. I lack a sense of beckoning energy, or of alignment with a greater will, when I consider generating something new.

If I knew what to work on I would do it, but the character of this time resists forward momentum. Even now as the calendar turns toward fall, usually a productive time for me, it’s not a season for looking forward. For now, I’m doing more learning than teaching, more reading than writing. I’m digging and planting in my yard, and trusting that the soil of my inner life will yield new growth as well. We’re living in a liminal time. I’m getting through it with this repeated mantra: Bow to what is.

For me, bowing to what is means allowing myself to see what is happening and to accept that it’s real. It means not resisting or denying what is true, even if I dislike it. It means trying my best to see without distortion. Only then can I respond effectively, whether it’s showing compassion to myself or someone else, or setting a boundary where it’s needed. We can’t force the world to be as we wish, we can only meet the world where it is and go from there.

The events of this year are bigger than I am. I can’t fix what’s wrong. Yet how I respond, how each of us responds, matters. We need deep healing in this country—not just a fix, but a reset. How to do that is beyond me, but I want to be part of finding a way. When things are this out of balance, the best thing I can offer is a commitment to connecting to the true, balancing center, and encouragement for others to do the same.

So my direction, for now, is not so much forward but inward. I look for glimpses of the pattern being woven through the unfolding of these days. I listen for the messages behind the daily onslaught of news. I value silence, a rest from the stream of information that yields no insight. If true knowledge is to be had, it must come from deeper and more enduring place.

The upheaval we’ve all experienced this year has made clear that we are not in control. But we do have choice. We’re part of something bigger than we are, and each of us has a role to play as this greater reality unfolds. This is a time for each of us, in our own way, to listen for our soul’s wisdom.

This world is in dire need of the genuine gifts that each of us can offer. We must read the inner compass that allows us to bring forth the abilities that are uniquely ours to share. How do we act not from fear but from love? What can we offer that strengthens the collective?

This liminal time offers an invitation to consider questions that we’ve held off, perhaps for years. It’s time to listen—not to the cacophony out there, but to the wisdom that dwells inside. It’s time to see clearly, respond effectively, and create a society that can somehow hold us all. Let’s keep working to find a way of life, individually and collectively, that fits better.

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Reclaiming Space from Opportunistic Weeds

August 3rd, 2020 | 2 Comments

Lately I’ve been weeding and mulching according to the sun, working when I can have shade in the heat of the summer. By 8:30 my time’s up, and even that is pushing it. Afterwards it feels good to sit on the porch and cool off, enjoying the improving landscape as the sun lights up the yard.

When I dug out a shrub from the front yard earlier this summer, I didn’t do anything beyond smoothing the dirt to reclaim the space it left. I pulled a few weeds then looked away for a moment. Suddenly the opportunistic crabgrass had not only taken over but grew in a mound threatening to replicate the size of the bush that had been there before. Among the spreading fingers a small cranesbill geranium with pale pink flowers bloomed—who knew you were there? But the voracious weeds nearly choked it out.

Nature abhors a vacuum they say. Physicists seem to be saying there are no vacuums, really. Everything exists in a field that connects everything. But our senses recognize that creating a space invites something to fill it.

Putting things in order, clearing space, is enormously satisfying. It brings peace. Then immediately the world presses in. So we need rituals and routines for holding that space, for preventing the opportunistic weeds from taking over and choking out what would bloom there.

It was a lot of work to pull out the crabgrass and other weeds that took over that fertile patch of soil. The job would have been easier if I had jumped on it sooner, but it’s done now. I worked carefully to keep the volunteer geranium intact while I extracted the weeds from around it. This time I covered the bare ground with a layer of mulch to help keep the weeds down. I need that help to hold the space until I get other things to grow there.

Whether it’s in a garden, or on a tabletop, or between the lines of a day planner, holding space can feel unproductive. It’s the antithesis of having an agenda. And yet holding space is about the healthiest intention we can have.

It’s interesting to consider the difference between an “agenda” and an “intention.” Agenda is a kind of willfulness, the imposition of not only what, but how and when. An intention is more expansive. It names a value and leaves open how to achieve it. It’s the yutori of consciousness (yutori being a Japanese word meaning “a space of sufficiency and ease”). There are times when the focus and direction of an agenda is needed—it enabled me to do the work of clearing the weeds. At other times, intention is needed to allow room to breathe and for new life to grow. While an agenda tries to avoid surprise, intention makes space for the unexpected and creates the possibility of delight on the way to where we want to go. Intention holds things lightly.

Creating and maintaining space in our lives claims the fertile ground of our heart and soul. Staying with our creative and contemplative practices protects us from encroachments that rob us of what we need to be fully alive. We don’t have to let ourselves be overrun by crabgrass, whether it takes the form of negative thoughts from within or impositions from without.

At a time when the news feels more oppressive week by week, fear and despair (or the anger and hate that disguise them) are the weeds that can take us over if we allow it. Our lives individually and collectively are too important to allow that to happen.

We have the ability to love one another and to bring love’s healing to the world. We need space in our lives and our hearts to do that work. The gentle intention of holding space is important right now. Holding and tending our heart space, being watchful for weeds and removing them promptly, will allow beauty and healing to bloom in our hearts, our lives, and our world.

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Remaking the Landscape

June 7th, 2020 | Click to Comment

I’ve known for months that a shrub in my front yard needed to be moved, but all through the fall, winter, and most of the spring, I avoided doing anything about it. It was a big project and I was focused on other things.

There was nothing wrong with the plant itself, but it was out of balance with its surroundings. It obscured the once-visible house number and blocked the roses trying to grow nearby. This happened little by little, the barely perceptible daily change imparting no sense of urgency. The encroachment grew, until a few days ago when something changed.

The tide of emotion moving through this nation and washing over me needed some kind of release. Grief and pain and anger over injustice is finally permeating our individual and collective psyche at a level we’ve never experienced before. And on that particular day, not knowing what to do about the larger picture, I found myself wrestling with the simpler task in front of me.

I cut into the ground with the tip of my shovel, making a circle wider than the reach of the shrub’s branches. I put my whole body into it, gripping the handle, foot on metal, shoving the blade into the soil with all the strength I could muster. Yet I also worked carefully. This bush was rooted in the wrong place and causing problems in the landscape, but I didn’t want to destroy it. Instead, I wanted to resituate it elsewhere.

When the underground structure was finally exposed, I was able to tip the shrub over. The root system ripped free with the sound of a thousand filaments breaking, muffled by the earth. One root, inexplicably longer and larger than the others, I had to cut with a pruner. I didn’t want to harm the plant, but I was doing violence to its intention to remain.

As I dug and sweated and pulled on those roots I held the question of where I was planted, and in what ways I might be rooted in the wrong place. I held the question of how our collective landscape needs to be remade, and what my part might be.

I continue asking, praying the question of what I can offer to support change, how I can act in a way that is compassionate and responsible. The answers take time. The questions are seeds, and I’m tending the ground where they can grow.

The shrub is doing well so far in its new location. I watch its leaves and water it well, willing it to take hold in this better place. The leaves are indicators but the important work is below ground. That’s where the hidden roots make their connection with new soil.

Beneath the ground unfolds a process that despite its familiarity remains a mystery. The seeds of questions we’re willing to ask break open, pushing new life up into the sunlight.

Susan Christerson Brown

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