Inviting a change of perspective

Back in my first year of a community supported agriculture (CSA) in North Dakota, I waged a holy but futile war against weeds, the gardener's sworn enemies. Three insights changed my perspective: 1) A wise elder heard my complaint and remarked, "My mother said weeds are just unwanted plant life." 2) In Stephen Buhner's Sacred Plant Medicine, he describes a ravaged, clearcut hillside slowly greening and then teeming with "weeds," nature's healing army rushing in to secure and restore soil. Nature's first responders! 3) Some North Dakotans made a trip to Washington DC (I don't remember why) and stopped by Founding Farmers, a cooperative-grower-owned restaurant serving farm-to-table fare. Reporting on their experience they were astonished to find purslane on the menu in the form of an $9 salad. "They are charging people to eat weeds," this person said.

My perspective on weeds changed. Recently, I learned about the critical role roots play in soil health. Roots release a compound called exudates and while sparing you the soil science explanation, let's just say that you should still diligently lop off any seed heads forming on your unwanted plant life but you should leave the rest of the plant in place, especially in the walkways. Bare soil is damaged, fragile, dying soil. A weeded garden may be more aesthetically pleasing, much like the green lawns Americans are so fond of, but it's not healthy soil. It's a death zone. Nor is it something you can heal by just adding more compost. The exudates function in a specific way in the soil and can't be shortcut. Don't want "weeds"? Then after you've weeded, make sure you sow more seeds. Get that soil covered with plant life.

I'm in the throes of garden anticipation due to the sunken garden project and the seed catalogs coming in the mail, and because my dancing visions of the perfect garden never realize, I'm also given, this time of year, to reflection on my garden notes from previous years, reviewing what I've learned, laughing at my failures, conjuring new experiments and researching new approaches. Gardening is just one area where I've experienced hard-won and revolutionary perspective change. I like thinking about how my perspective has changed over my lifetime as well as how to invite change in perspective. Life is change, but I often get stuck in my specific way of thinking about things. Right now, in the spirit of January and the new year, a lot of people are trying to change their life or experience or habits. Unfortunately, most won't follow through. In fact, I'm writing this post on Quitters Day, the time of year when people stop pursuing their resolutions, a mere 10 days after they started!

A little thought exercise for you today: I invite you to take some time to bring to mind some perspective changes you've experienced in your life. While you've surely had some small ones, think about the bigger ones.

Investigate these moments:

What was the inciting event?

How did you welcome or resist this perspective change?

How did you feel about learning you were wrong or missing something you now see or understand? That is, how do you feel about being a growing, changing being rather than someone who has everything all figured out?

How did your actions/behavior and experience of life (feeling) change as a result of this perspective shift?

Knowing that we get stuck in our perspectives even as life constantly changes, how might you invite change of perspective into your experience more often?

Moral development theory describes a critical juncture occurring between the ages of 18 - 21 years where the inherited or culturally nurtured morality of childhood runs smack into the larger world. Some, when confronted by differing perspectives, dig in or default to a black/white dichotomy and resist opening to other possibilities. For these folks, there is just one right way and that way must be protected. Imagine the fear involved in this, how high the stakes must feel. Development theorists describe such people as stunted. Normal moral development pushes through this stage of initial discomfort, opening to the buffet of perspectives existing in the human community. This is not to say that everyone abandons whatever moral framework they received as children, but they do come to see 1) it's not the only way, and 2) they might benefit from changing their own perspective, even if only a little bit. One of the great joys of being in my 50s is having been shaped by so many different people, viewpoints, experiences, etc. that I do not seek definitive answers and rather enjoy the freedom of questions, change, and not knowing (or having to know).

So climb up on that roof, see how different the world looks from there. I hope you can experience at least one big, beautiful, possibly uncomfortable but life-expanding change in perspective this year.