I wasn’t going to post this one. Sometimes what I cook up, trawl out of the nets for a glimpse and witness in the wild woods is a little too personal, somewhat disturbing, or not ready for prime time viewing. This one skirts the edges, perhaps in need of a twist and turn to the spoon, a light touch on the strands, or a respectful pretending not to see quite what one sees in the shadows.

I mean, maybe I make it look easy. This dancing through the darkness of the other world for fun and Hek of it, with a slight hope that what I find might be of use to the larger us of us. Sometimes you have to show mercy to the unknown, and throw back what you catch. Generosity is required when one is immersed in such matters. That quality requires a foundation of focus, else things turn to goblin gold (that is, sand and bones) in the light.

“Don’t turn around,” says the scary voice of our dragon enemy-forward slash-instrument of destiny, “there might be something behind you.” Can you dig the Behinder? It creeps up from the past and jack moves you. That horrific aspect of yourself that makes sure you don’t escape the sins of your past. But oh-ho, without sin there can be no redemption. Or so I heard from a wise man dressed in red and offering me a get-out-of-jail-free card if I would only confess.

I confessed for real, and got that card. But as surely as one can’t buy redemption for the price of one’s soul, knowing isn’t always the same as understanding. I still had work to do.

Like getting down with the psychic planting of community seeds. We do this thing—leave seeds in the psychic ground of the people we meet. When the time is right, those full bore crops call to us to complete the cycle. Maybe this is too complex for how life really is. I mean, who can keep track of most of the impressions we make on people?

Maybe the folks we make impressions on do it for us. It’s a complex, social-contract thing that might seem complex, but which is really easy. Because that’s how we’re made, how we’ve become made. And we don’t know what seeds people are carrying. It might not be for them at all, it might be for us, and handing it off helps them move forward in whatever strange winding pathway they choose to explore.

So what the Hek am I doing carrying all these seeds for other people? What kind of reality am I experiencing where I have ground for people to drop by and plant a few? Am I a peddler, wandering about with a huge backpack on my shoulders, plants galore growing out of it, my hands full of all-you-can-eat seeds?

I have a few secret entrances here, so I’m going to pry one open and meander through a while so I can make sense of this one.

It’s irrational, this watering and fertilizing of other people’s burdens in the deep tunnels of the sideshow life. What’s it got to do with me?

Everything. I want to scream EV-RY-THNG, but that’s just blowing off steam that isn’t mine. Hek, who says the plot I’m standing in is even mine? What if I’m just the lamp showing people where to try?

Past the wind-swept tunnels of hillside regurgitated youth I roam, until I find the flowering I’ve been seeking. I don’t know whose backyard plot I’m trespassing on, or even if I haven’t gone in a circle and ended up back on my own immediate brain-garden.

You always return to yourself. Where else would the fruits of your own soul come to light? I’m thinking you have to take care of your own business, with a mindful realization of the selfishness yet still able to be yourself. Hard stuff to take care of our business, when so many outside demands and inside eruptions distract us. It’s a balancing act.

I got gardening to do. So I head over to the plot. Where the weeds are driving miss daisy crazy and the ground is making me feel full effect. The big tomatoes are all huge and green, but still not turning, even after a ferocious, record rainfall yesterday.

Let’s see. There’s a gray, mole like rodent thing moving through the plants and over to the horseradish to hide. Until I water that area. See, I keep a section open for the weeds to run free, just because I’m crazy like that. Bermuda grass, thistles, morning glory spiral pests—they all get to play in that plot.

I spot a spider with an egg sac clutched below its abdomen, migrating to the next safe zone. Gotta stop at the intersection and let her pass. A carpenter bee takes some time to examine the weak spot of my wooden border. Yellow finches fly overhead looking for physical seeds to eat (physical hunger needs a physical food, spiritual hunger needs…you get the idea).

An elder ladybug of many spots shows up, hanging out on a thistle leaf. I move aside a wooden board to hand-scrabble some earth and find myself face to face with a blackish-crimson, squishy salamander. Whoops, that’s somebody’s home, gotta make course adjustments.

I leave the critters to their own devices and dig up some earth, coming across several rocks. The plot is far from having been cleared of obstacles. Rocks are like storage batteries. They hold minerals, particles, nutrients for us until we need them. Likewise, they hold truths for us until we need them. I feel bad putting them into a pile to be tossed into the woods when I’m done.

I pick a bunch of small cherry tomatoes that are definitely done. The smaller fruits are ready faster than the larger ones I suppose. As I pick these gifts I stare back at the plot where the weeds grow taller than me.

I remember last year, a woman working on the plot, trying to get her two sons to help her. She’s serious, striving, taking care of business. That year she got a lot of great peppers and pumpkins. The sons are all bored and squirming, as if this is the worst thing in their lives they have ever had to endure.

Funny thing is, I know what those kids are feeling. I remember when my mom dragged me over here and made me help her bust sod and fill water jugs. I was like, why do all this work when we could just buy it at the store? Complain, fuss, moan and resist. Yet, here I am decades later plunging head first into the struggle of my own free will to snatch a smidgen of something worthwhile.

Seeds planted, full bloom.

I talked like that plot was a graveyard of those who tried and failed. But for all I know, the two-second look of encouragement I gave those kids, the chitchat I had with the mother, placed seeds in a plot not visible. An appreciation of something difficult for its own sake. Or they might pass those seeds along to someone who needs to have that experience.

We’re pollinators of psychic flowers like dat.

My mom drops by and gives me a bunch of tomatoes from her plot. Overflow procedure, too much to use. Same here. I got my hands full of little tasty morsels. I’ll bring them into work, where I know a bunch of folks will revel in the gift. People need what we generate. Generosity, as we march along the weird road of understanding.

I mean, yeah, the seeds that are exploding in you right this very moment. They’re going to last a brief while or they’ll go dormant and come back next year, but it’s a cycle. Down into the dirt again. Is that any reason not to water yourself? What flowers, what fruits of your life are you hiding under a bushel because of the crows you grant power to?

Let yourself grow, to fill the mammoth form you inhabit. There’s a bursting forth right this moment, having been laid in the ground with care or scattered carelessly, but ready for you to connect the dots. And you have, you just don’t want to admit it.

You know about the special bonus plants right?

What if your harvest is the one that gives others the margin of survival?

Or gives you the margin of survival?

Some people deposit crops in you because it’s their quest. What, you thought it was just some fed-ex XP thing they had to do? Yeah it was, and who knows who designed their adventure. Look around your immediate psychic hang-out. Stuff is growing that you have no clue what it is. Some people dump a load on you, and it’s fertilizer man, you just got to roll with it. Other times you’re so messed up it’s God’s good humor and a wheel of fortune as to whether you let anything sprout.

One things for sure, yesterday is becoming today and tomorrow. It’s in yur plot growin yur foodz.