Leap

Leap into the void and believe the parachute will open, but never miss the moment flying though the sky, looking down and spinning and knowing all is well even if the parachute never opens. This flow of sky is what is known by one who has jumped out of a plane. And this flow of sky is the way I choose to continue stepping into this business.

Clear away what blocks the eye from beauty. Take this into everything, the way sometimes the mouth opens when silence will do, the way to approach everyone you meet with the mind of I don’t know, for there is a great gift in watching the journey of those you encounter without judgment. 

I found an accountant man today. I found a man to pay rent to get starts into a greenhouse. And I gave a number of versions of guava seeds to Anna who will bring them into a place that stays twelve degrees hotter than what it is outside.

I wonder how we might play inside of that place with sapote and cherimoya and other tropical fruits that have died and never come back. Perhaps starting jaboticabas and other young ones. 

Next year, I want to count the number of guava that I pick. I want to know which trees produce the most and of what color and shape and ripeness. I want to save even more seeds and start even more seeds and when I lay down the trademarked Living Chips I might be able to pop dozens of seedlings into the ground and see which fruit first and which taste best and as a man with no degree in any kind of agriculture, I might still be able to know about selective breeding.

Those people at the turn of the century, they just watched. I know something about watching. I know something about how we cannot always count on the fruit because the pollen may come from another flower and so though we know the mother, there is no way for me to know the father. Perhaps this is where Anna and those at LSU might look into this. 

I might have added a request that nothing be sprayed on the plants that come from the seeds that I give them. I will let many of mine die as I continue to find more and more spots where we can grow more and more fruit. And I will still do this here and there for free, for those who really need it, for those willing to work with and learn from me.

There is so much growing up I still get to do. When Gary asked me questions about things an adult might keep track of in order to do his taxes I realized how much more opportunity is left. I asked him about the possibilities of building on the land I own, of having a sort of retreat center, of being able to write these off on my tax returns. 

I see a greenhouse where the plants grow inside. I also see a green house meaning one where the water is caught and reused, where the windows are stationed in such a way that breeze naturally blows through, where the sun runs the electricity and the Southwest side of the house contains a giant iron arch with muscadine and fronted by other subtropical trees.

To pay to have all of my starts in one place where I know they will be safe over the winter is one more way of clearing the head. 

This is opening up, just the way she said it would. When I pull cayratia Japonica, something inside me clears. There is a pause. A breath.

I woke up next to her this morning. Her first words were cayratia Japonica. The way she smiles. Maybe even smirks a bit when she says you talk about it so much. It’s nice to be teased upon awakening, before prayer and meditation, before the sun has fully risen, and it’s nice to be surprised in the middle of my backyard, shoveling Living Chips around a lychee from Shu Shia, and then all of a sudden 

“Holy shit. You scared me to death,``I scream. And Nasim is standing there in short shorts and my boots in the middle of the yard laughing. 

I get to mow the space where nothing is growing and never again judge those with long lawns and Home Depot trees.

But I get to find a balance. For me. And then for these people. So that I might go into the spaces where they live and help to take and make at least one small corner of their yard living. And if I can do this on numerous corners, who knows how this might spread, how I might teach my clients to take cuttings and seeds and share these with those next to them, how my healing their soil will lead to them healing the soil of their neighbors.

It looks like I’m building my team, and all of this starts with asking for help and making sure each day's work is a collaboration on the painting that God and I are creating.