Gatherings

Indigenous women spend much of the autumn season—the harvest—gathering, drying and storing seeds—foodstuff for the pending winter weather and planting material for springtime sowing--calculated survival, a skill women have been practicing and perfecting since time on this planet began.

Winter is a time to rest, to lay low, wait. I have been waiting for this waiting season for quite some time now. It seems the gathering season has extended itself out on my calendar for over two years.

At the start of this gathering season, my husband, Dee and I had been married three years (it was the second time for both of us) and we had attempted from our beginnings as a couple for the last chance at conceiving a child together. I had been pregnant three times before, two of those pregnancies viably blessing me with my beautiful daughters. My last pregnancy was over eighteen years past and the idea of conception at 42 was dubious, at best. Also, Dee has diabetes which can cruelly beat the shit out of the male reproductive system. Still, it just didn’t seem fair that Dee would not have the chance to be a father, in his own right. Damn it! He would be such a good one.

So against the odds, and full of hope and faith, we set out to beat the odds. We were convinced we could do it—after all we could be counted on in a crowd of congregants to lift our hands in witness of a miracle. Wouldn’t that be enough? Just to raise the odds a bit, we opted to play the reproductive roulette game of artificial insemination.

Four failed attempts later—each time literally flushing precious lifeblood down the toilet, we made the agonizing decision to forego further attempts. I was beginning to relate somewhat to the Holly Hunter character, Edwina in the Cohen brothers’ film, “Raising Arizona.” Upon finally realizing the dream of conception was simply that, a dream, Edwina’s husband Hi reported that “Edwina’s insides were a rocky place where my seed could find no purchase.”

We resigned ourselves to the notion of practicing parenthood in alternative ways; improving our relationship with my already grown children, welcoming neighbor children into our yard and home, volunteering with the youth groups of our city and church, doting on our nieces and nephews, and someday our grandchildren. Those who have played this routine out know it just isn’t the same and it’s performed on the backdrop of heartbreaking disappointment.

But the Universe wasn’t finished strewing seeds across my pathways for the gathering.

About the same time that we had turned in our conceptual letters of resignation, my oldest daughter informed us that she had successfully conceived and that she would be keeping her baby. I was not over-pleased, the sting of my recent failures still inflicting bitter pain and due to the appearance that she would be raising her baby alone. It certainly affected the way I handled the gathering of that seed.

In retrospect, I realize and accept that it was not seed for my gathering. On the other hand the situation was more complicated than dividing and compartmentalizing problems into baskets labeled “mine” and “someone else’s.” This was my daughter, formerly estranged and arriving at my door desperately needing her mother. What could I do? I’m her mother and I’m a gatherer. I collected her across my threshold, sowed seeds of new hope in anticipation of my first grandchild and awaited the pending harvest—every effort exerted to that end.

As an experienced gardener, I ought to have known better—harvest rarely yields exactly what one expects and it is NEVER an end. The “unexpected” was that after a seven month absence from my daughter’s life, her boyfriend reappeared—literally at the delivery room. Within three weeks time my daughter and granddaughter were whisked away amid the shattered hulls of my expectations and dreams.

But, contrary to the “Raising Arizona” line, I discovered that there were seeds sown of which I had forgotten that did find purchase and had grown. One of the sweetest was actually not one of my gathering or planting—it was the fruit of the seed of forgiveness that my ex-husband had sown in his own heart. It came to fruition the moment our granddaughter was born. As we gazed together at the miracle, my ex-husband quietly slipped his arm around my waist offering me his support and approval. No words, but it was a most beautiful gift—a cornucopia of reconciliation that has given me the encouragement to plant seeds of good will toward my granddaughter’s father.

I proudly watch my daughter mother her child but I am vigilantly and often too critically observant of the fathering. The seeds of forgiveness have transcended my failings as an impatient gardener in this area of my life and I am pleased with the growth I see, in spite of myself. Materially, life is hard for that little family, but my granddaughter is happy in the love of both her parents and I am satisfied that the seeds I once doubted have fallen on good (I dare not say fertile) soil.

And I can do nothing else but what I have been doing all along these past two years—gather more seeds.

Recently, I discovered the seeds of creativity gently wrapping little tendrils of their roots around my life—in my renewed attempts at writing and a newly discovered interest in making wire jewelry that goes beyond the simple stringing of beads and which blesses the lives of those I love.

I am in the process of reconfiguring my field of faith and planting fresh new seeds. It is a wild field of wheat and tares which won’t be plucked out or burned. Who knows but that I might use the twine of such as those to weave baskets—containers for future seed gatherings.

I have been blessed with the seeds of new relationships that are peeking their vestiges above the crisp ground promising to blossom like the daffodils and crocuses that greet me on my afternoon walks. And I look to the wonderful man with whom I have shared my plantings these past five years and I can do naught but smile. He is a sturdy perennial ever offering regenerated seeds of the constancy of his love.

These past two weeks, the Universe manifested the vision of my gatherings and literally dropped pods of those Kentucky Coffee Bean trees across my path—confirming the validity of my gatherings (see the “Not Made of Wood” posting earlier this month). And just yesterday, almost immediately after my departure from the Kazeon Center (the zen sangha in Salt Lake City), the auspice of one of many seeds of faith springing in my heart—a single buckeye dropped directly in my path. A sign? I don’t know but I really think I’ve completely skipped over winter, there is no waiting with spring so soon to begin—fields cleared and I’ve got baskets of gathered seeds to sow.