The thermometer shows 120F in the sun.
The air is heavy and sticky.
When I walk deeper into the backyard I am soon developed by a surprising cool under the thick canopy of our old trees.
What a difference shade makes!
I breathe in the wet air that still lingers, smelling of the morning rain.
A week of heat and rain had transformed our backyard into a jungle. I forgot how fast plants can grow!
I call out in surprise to my daughter who is running with me through the jungle. Wasn’t the broccoli just a baby plant a few weeks ago, and now, look at it, it is almost as tall as you!
And look at the tomato plant!, she calls out in sheer surprise.
O my, not only had the tomato plant grown probably three times the size when we planted it, its wild branches poured all over the little growing structure which now looked like a dwarf underneath a untamed bush with flowers and little green pearls showing here and there.
Now what?
As much I like to let things grow as they please, this tomato plant called out to me. It urgently needed help.
So we started to untangle the branches that had grown around in knots, some broke off at our mere touch.
The poor plant had put a lot of energy into growing around itself putting out more little sprigs in every direction, trying to reach the light.
The more it interlaced its branches the more it shaded its own flowers and the less it could concentrate on producing flower buds and therefore fruit.
As we untangled the poor thing I thought about cultivating our inner life.
Was it perhaps time for me to untangle?
Is there too much energy going into circling around myself, and too little into growing a strong branch into the light?
I was quite taken by the lesson the tomato plant had in store for me:
First, I had to decide which branch was the strongest and what in the entangled green mass needed to go.
Some sprigs had turned long and thin, with only a little flower stand at the very end, or, none at all.
All that energy, poured out in vain.
I nodded. I know. I have those branches, too, I tried to comfort the tomato plant.
It is not easy to let go of things that have become fruitless. Sometimes we need help to get all our well-meant projects, desires, and attempts untangled.
As I ended up pruning the tomato bush back into a tomato plant, cutting off more than half of it, I pondered its lesson:
Growing wild is not the same as growing strong.
The interior path is rarely about adding more.
More often, it begins with gently untangling what has quietly grown around itself.
Cultivating takes patience, and willingness to bear loss,
In the garden as well as in the heart.
It needs a kind gardener who carefully and tenderly untangles what has become fruitless and prunes back what needs to go, so the strongest and most healthy part can grow into the light.
And produce sweet fruits in its time.
May the Gardener
of our souls
gently untangle
what has become dense and matted,
prune
what has become fruitless,
and strengthen
what longs to grow
toward the light.May it be so,
in my life,
and in your life,Amen.
Peace and blessings, Almut
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Coming up at The Cloister
This Fall we open The Cloister Path—a way of walking our inner rooms as we would the rooms of a monastery, season by season, room by room. Not as a retreat from the world, but as a way of returning to it renewed.
If today’s little tomato plant made you wonder about your own inner cultivation, don’t miss this weekend’s letter. I’ll share why I believe the interior path may be the starting point of the paths towards independence in our time.
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"The interior path is rarely about adding more.
More often, it begins with gently untangling what has quietly grown around itself."
And, I rather think, ii has grown into areas we may not be unaware of, or are too fearful to tred into. Those darker places that silently yearn for untangling in order to see the light and to breathe.
I'm untangling too and learning to let go. It's not easy.