Communicate without words

In the summer of 2019 I grew from seed the most magnificent tobacco plant that grew to be at least 8 feet tall. It was epic and often I would think someone was in the garden with me as I would always see it in my periphery as it occupied so much space. I had grown really fond of it and yes, I even talked to it. Not always with spoken words, but there were moments when I stood in front of it and just felt enveloped by the sheer greatness of this illustrious power plant. I felt small and humble in its presence. Certainly a student.

When late September came around and the oh-so-real inward autumn pull that is SO loud here in Manitoba began, I remember walking out into the garden and saw its energy waning. The days getting palpably shorter… I got all sorts of twinges in my heart like when you’re driving a loved one to the airport and you know that a goodbye is imminent.

I went over and just sat with it. After awhile I began to weep tears of gratitude. One of the glorious golden tickets you get as a highly sensitive person in this world, is the ability to communicate without words and feel the energy and essence of a living being. Our fields merged. What it *said* to me was “We are watching you, as much as you are watching us. You’ve been working with us in a good way and you’re a worthy conduit.”

As any seasoned gardener will tell you, there is a grief that comes with the end of the growing season. It feels like having spent the summer at camp with your chums, year after year, and every summer another layer is revealed and you get to know them a little more. For example, if you like the sun or prefer the shade, who you like to be planted by, if you favor dry over swampy soil, and so on. You develop a very real relationship with all the characters in the garden.

Back to the tobacco… it was time to harvest it and it felt like everything I had ever learned about gardening and plant medicine up to this point was for this moment. It was a test and ceremony wrapped into one. Under a classic September blue sky, attended by the chickadees and crows, kissed by the warm breeze, and witnessed by the garden collective. It was BIG magic and I’ll never forget it.

Whether it be an airport goodbye, or the end of summer camp saying farewell to your pals, or standing in your garden about to harvest a power plant, it is precisely in this juncture that a million things are said without words. You arrive, ever so present, acutely aware and attuned to the moment, and that in itself is a gift.

It was in this space that my body reviewed in an instant the summer we shared and the lessons learned. The patience and discipline, the myth and magic, the joy and the grief.

The next day the stem still stood in the garden. The leaves were gone, and most definitely the spirit was gone. But I carried the hope that it would return again the following year, and as luck would have it, the tobacco plant left me thousands upon thousands of seeds letting me know that it too, wanted to play again next year.

My program “Of Marrow and Mother” begins this Monday. Come join me!