Pointy End Up

Caring deeply and holding loosely

Hope and good intentions

I planted my garlic for the season.
Which, if you know anything about growing garlic, means I currently have a lot of waiting ahead of me.

Garlic is not a quick reward crop, but rather a long term investment steeped in hope.
You prepare the soil, choose the best cloves, plant them, and then you just… live your life.
For the coming months you’ll water as needed, feed occasionally and resist the urge to dig them up and check. The rest is trust. Trust that something good is happening underground.

Lately I've been thinking about the tension between hope and attachment. Between planting with intention and gripping so tightly to the outcome that the process becomes a source of anxiety rather than pleasure. It comes up in many aspects of our lives and I feel it in my personal experience, as well as hear it from friends and participants.

Sowing seeds, starting compost piles, planting a cutting in the soil, showing up weekly to a community program, all of these actions are acts of hope. Beginnings of a process with the desire for a certain result. We want to enjoy the harvest and experience the joys and promise of new life.

This is something I often return to - both in my work and in my own head - the difference between caring about an outcome and being ruled by it.

Hope is good. I actually think it is essential. Trusting that the garlic is worth planting, that the compost will eventually become something magnificent, that the bare-looking stick will leaf up again in spring, and that we will form meaningful connections.
Without hope, would we bother putting anything in motion at all?

Attachment — the white-knuckled, outcome-dependent kind — tends to steal the very thing we came to the garden to find. I can do my best to support the process- feed, water, mulch and care for my developing plants (and myself).
But that is all I can do.

Surprise garlic shoots from a previous year’s failed crop

I've watched people discover something genuinely meaningful in the act of pressing seeds into soil, and then immediately pivot to "when will they germinate? what comes next?" Which, fair question! Learn the steps you need to take, familiarize yourself with the basics, then learn to let that go a little and return to this moment, and every following moment of care and investment.

Nature does not respond to pressure, does not reward anxiety and doesn't particularly notice urgency. It does however respond to consistent care. Slowly, quietly, in its own time and space.
Showing up, doing small, intentional acts and trusting that the conditions you've created are enough. That you don't need to see the roots to know that they are growing.

In the case of my garlic, it will be lush and ready for harvest in the summer. Hopefully.
I don’t really have control over it.
What I do have are those moments of planting. The smell and texture of the soil, the satisfaction of tucking each clove in at the right depth, pointy end up. And the weeks of care, curiosity and anticipation, sneaking out to look for new shoots.
If I let it be, these can prove quite pleasant.
That is the process. It has value entirely independent of what eventually comes out of the ground.

I don't think this is about lowering expectations, or not caring, or even pretending results don't matter (I mean, I still want my beautiful garlic crop). It's more about broadening our view of what counts as success and making the most out of the times in between.

Keep showing up, do what you can, and take care along the way.
Something is growing, even if you can't see it yet.

What process have you embarked on recently? In the garden or elsewhere.
I hope you’re enjoying the path 🌱