What’s Still Standing

This is an excerpt from the weekly News-Loveletter. If you would like it sent to your inbox directly (with all the other juicy bits, including a mini joy practice), you can add yourself to my mailing list here.

Dark, prickly seedheads of Black-Eyed Susan with native Goldenrod standing tall behind.

I am one of many who lives on this parcel of land I am honored to steward. The Crows, Chickadees, and Juncos eat and rest here, too. And in the spring, they build their nests. I used to tidy up the garden in fall, trimming back “deadheads” and clearing away old brush and lanky stems. I knew those seeds were food for the birds, but my need for order mattered to me more.

Last year, I watched my friend Crow lift the pale, dry skeleton of a nasturtium vine from the earth. She flew away with it clutched in her shiny beak. I watched with fascination as she returned again and again, tugging more of its stringy mass from the tangle of sprouting grass. No doubt, she aimed to build a nest from what I’d left behind.

This year, I will leave the seedheads standing tall and the vines to thin in place. I now understand that insects, many of them pollinators, hibernate in those hollow stems. Some take refuge from the cold while shedding their pupae cloaks to emerge in spring with fresh wings.

What once appeared messy to me is now teeming with the order of life. I feel more alive honoring this co-creation. Where do you release your hold on order to meet others’ needs with glee? How has considering all needs allowed for a joyful shift in lifestyle and aesthetics?