Many lessons, though begrudgingly at the time, were learned at the Gan Gan School. Lessons in work ethic, reaping and sowing, animal husbandry - as my mom loves to call it - discipline in the dojo where my step-father taught martial arts to anyone who showed up, free of charge every Thursday night and Saturday morning. I learned to tackle and juke chasing loose chickens and goats. How to turn a live chicken, goat, turkey and occasionally rabbit into a wonderful dinner spread through teamwork. The value of education in summer school. The value of generosity as our father took in several troubled youth and adults over the years.
I would love to see that and more reinstated for the community of Chaparral, and it all has to start somewhere. I see it starting with getting water back on the property to start planting some trees and a community garden, hence all the recent volunteering at The Mountain View Market Farm to learn the ropes of organic farming, and maybe even aquaponics.
Last time I was volunteering at the farm I was given the task of pulling weeds from a row of vegetables. I think I learned I try to be too methodical and complete when pulling weeds because Lori came and got the amount I pulled in 1 hour in about 5 minutes and I thought maybe my time would be better spent making a bigger impact by getting the majority of the weeds rather than getting every single weed in one little plot. I forgot to ask though. During that hour I had to pause several times to capture the inspired thoughts that seemed to flow effortlessly as I lost myself digging in the dirt.
I posed a question afterwards about the correlation between pulling weeds and nurturing a healthy relationship.
If you didn’t see it I asked “What parallels would you draw between pulling weeds and nurturing a garden. I appreciate everyone who took the time to add their perspective.
This is what came up for me in reviewing that particular question:
Being a novice farmer I was a little worried when Lori quickly went through the 3 or four different vegetables scattered amongst a few different weeds. It got more complicated when she told me one of the weeds was actually edible and my little hamster wheel started to smoke, but I let it go thinking “I’m feeding it to the sheep anyways so a few weeds, a few vegetables, no harm no foul”. Then I got to work and I started to notice the ones I wasn’t too sure about but seemed like plants, came up a lot easier than the ones I was pretty sure were weeds. Then I was sure the weeds were weeds, when I saw how freely and overwhelmingly they spread throughout the beds while the plants were few and far between, and normally very close to the water source if they were at all noteworthy.
What I made it mean in my little old brain was this: the plants were purposely placed with care and a hope to become nourishment in the cycle of life. The weeds grew naturally in abundance and easily overwhelmed the plants. They took resources, space and sun. Also, it took consistent, conscious care and effort daily to create an environment for the plants to flourish and reach maturity.
I likened the plants to a healthy loving relationship and the weeds to all the confusion, clutter, distractions, temptations and culturally accepted mores that do not support healthy love or relationships. I looked at it as an affirmation to something I’ve been pondering a lot lately; which is that most relationships don’t work out, not so much because it was the “wrong person,” but more so because the environment didn’t contribute to the successful maturation of the relationship.
The environmental threats to maturation of a healthy relationship come in just as many forms and with the same consistency as the environmental threats to the maturation of a delicious, homegrown organic watermelon(yes, I am half black watermelon and purple drink).
Things to consider in Love and Gardening:
Is the ground ready for planting?
In gardening, especially in this dry desert temperature it takes quite a bit of consideration to properly prepare the ground to have a fruitful harvest. In the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey, he talks about what it takes to go from success with yourself “private victory” to success in relationships with others “public victory”. The foundation is putting in the work to take responsibility for your choices, create a vision, and prioritize your own life. Once you have that foundation there is a process to building healthy relationships and creating a win/win situation. All too often individuals wind up not following the win/win process and end up in a lose/win situation where they give everything and feel taken advantage of at the conclusion of the relationship, or they take on a win/lose approach and do whatever they want with no consideration for the other party.
To truly find a win/win situation the foundation lies in establishing character. What are your personal habits and do you know enough about the other party to see if their personal habits align with yours? Far too often people jump into a relationship first and set up all sorts of agreements before the character piece is understood. It takes time and patience to really get to understand a person’s character, but we become so enamored during the courting phase that we forego the win/win and end up wondering why there are so many things coming up that we had no clue about 6 months into the relationship.
Do you have all the tools needed to make it through all the seasons?
Communication has been one of the biggest breakdowns in many of my relationships and I’ve come to believe that is pretty typical of most disagreements. One of the most profound communication tools I’ve learned to date is also from the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People “5th Habit”; Seek First to Understand Then to Be Understood. This has been monumental in opening up doors in relationships that I didn’t think could be opened. There is a key ingredient to truly understanding an individual and it’s as simple as being patient and open enough to get to the point of them affirming verbally that “Yes. I feel like you understood me.” If you can do that in the worst of battles you will see a complete shift in the mood and tone of the conversation.
It takes a lot of patience, self-confidence, maturity, and most of all, courage to actually be influenced by the other person. Most people are fighting to be right and when you stop fighting and are truly open to being influenced by the other persons perspective, one of two things happens; 1. You realize there was some validity to what they were saying and can now make a change for the better, or 2. They realize you care and truly want to solve the issue at hand, and they become more cooperative and more willing to accept your advice. IT’S TRULY MAGICAL!!
Although I haven’t yet experienced the deep bond created from consistently understanding, as I am still just a novice., I believe that this is the key to making it through the endless changes and seasons we go through in relationships. People change, plans change, but if you can let the communication pattern of understanding remain constant, it shows you care and are always willing to learn and grow in the relationship.
Are we working with a perennial?
What are your intentions in the relationship? The more clear you are about the desired outcome on both sides of the relationship before getting into it, the fewer headaches you will feel later. Even deeper than that, however, I don’t believe anyone truly wants the headache of getting attached to a relationship only to sever it sometime down the road, this only happens when they think they are getting one thing but haven’t invested the time to be sure.
Everyone has their own style of dating and are at different places in the relationship matrix, and when you put in the work to understand yourself completely you can share with your potential partner what you are about, understand them and decide prior to entering an agreement if you think your visions align.
When you consider these details every time you think about engaging in a relationship, you create a platform for success.
A definition of maturity that I really vibe with is, the ability to hold off on what you want now for something greater in the future. I believe that examining these questions when considering your next relationship will set you up to harvest the fruit of a mature loving relationship for life. It’s just my opinion, but it gives me the inspiration to patiently put in the daily work it takes learning to communicate in a way that will prepare me for the abundant harvest when the time is right.
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