Planting Joy
(This week’s blog post is by Lynn Koerbel.)
Fires are raging through northern California. Reports fromPuerto Rico and the ravages of Hurricane Maria continue, and while Houston, TX and the Florida Keys were hit weeks ago, full recovery is months away. Meanwhile, my community in Northampton, Massachusetts is challenged to find affordable housing for a refugee family in our midst, and I have colleagues who are daily working to corral the heartbreaking impact of the opioid crisis. Not great news, right? And I haven’t even mentioned politics. Knowing something about what it is to be alive on the planet right now, I suspect that, if you are reading this, you,
too, may be feeling the shocks and aftershocks of whatever is happening in your own mind and heart, your family, your community and the larger world. For a minute, together, let’s lay the burden down. Let’s know it and relinquish it… just for a moment.
There is a fine line between attending to what is important—and also, knowing when it is skillful to set something aside. My friend and colleague Margaret Fletcher wrote about putting herself on a media diet, which I highly recommend (Media diet in the age of (more than) plenty). You might try out such a practice and see how your mood and well-being are
impacted.
And here’s another practice you might consider: Planting joy.
Because it’s not just what we don’t do that can be supportive. We can also foster wholesomeness,
healing, generosity and light-heartedness through gestures that uplift us.
With the world in chaos, being joyful can seem disrespectful or naïve. There may be the feeling “With things this bad, how can I be joyful?” It can feel wrong to focus on and cultivate joy at distressing times… but isn’t it actually what might be called for?
So today, in the midst of all this news—I’m planting bulbs. I’ve got 50 grape hyacinths and 100 assorted daffodils I’ll dig into the soil around my house. It’s a way to tend to the earth as well as the “humus,” the soil of my humanity. It will be hard work: Shoveling, stooping, clearing the rocky ground. And it’s risky, too. There are deer where I live, and they love these tender morsels. And, who knows how this winter will be? Wet, dry, cold, warm? Innumerable factors will impact these potential blooms. The fact that it’s risky, that there are no guarantees, that it is hard work, feels appropriate.
I’m betting on joy: The delight of purple and yellow appearing in the midst of the brown and grey of a New England winter. I’m betting that the heart can hold it all: The reality of loss, disaster, anguish, grief and the tenderness of possibility, wonder and warmth.
What actions are you taking to nurture joy? What are you planting in the midst of hardness, challenge or overwhelm? Leave your comments here so we can take strength and find sustenance together.