The Good Table At Home: Spiritual Composting
by Kelly Knight, Marketing Manager for The Good Table
Spiritual Touchstone
When it comes to religion, I am a mutt: a crossbreed of several different theologies and practices that resonate deeply with me. One way I connect with my spirituality is through gardening — the cycles of birth, growth, and death in the garden are a lens through which I contemplate the seasons of my life.
As I prepared my garden for winter this year, I thought a lot about what a gigantic mess 2020 has been. If it were a garden, it would be overrun with weeds, choking out the seedlings we planted with the best intentions. For some of us, it would have been either too hot and dry, or too wet and cold. Sometimes my worries about the pandemic, fire season, and our country’s contentious politics have felt like annoying garden pests: showing up when I least want them and refusing to go away until I apply heavy evasive maneuvers.
That said, the garden has given me so much joy this year. In a time when everything stays the same day after day, it is a dance of endless change. In order to observe it, we have to slow down and really look, really experience our plants growing, worms tilling the rich soil, bees tending to each flower.
Garden, ready for the winter
Our lives benefit from this moment-to-moment mindfulness as well. When we are really present for what is happening, we are more aware of the moments of grace we may miss if we are not tuned in. Yes, the pandemic has made showing up for life a lot harder — there is, inarguably, more anxiety, more sadness, more pain, more loss this year. But given the human propensity to remember negative experiences more than positive ones, this tuning in can give us back the good parts of our lives by bringing our attention to them, no matter how small they are.
As I was pulling out the weeds and spent plants, I felt grateful for the air in my lungs and my body’s ability to tend to my garden. After a long, hard pregnancy, a difficult birth, and a complex recovery, any movement feels like a miracle. I put what I’d pulled out into the compost bin, and as I did, it occurred to me that winter is a great time for some spiritual composting.
I think it’s healthy and maybe even necessary to compost what we no longer need, both physically and spiritually. When we return what we’ve used but need to let go of to the compost pile, it can rest, and then as it is turned over and over, become something rich and fruitful that nourishes new growth.
What might go into our spiritual compost bin? Things like long-held but no longer useful beliefs, lingering resentments, relationships that have become toxic, and anything else that weighs our soul down. A lot of the time, when we let these things go, we find ourselves a lot lighter. I often visualize a real compost bin and putting my worries and old ways of thinking deep inside. When intrusive thoughts emerge, or I want to ruminate on an old memory I’m still hanging on to, I think about turning it over and over in my compost bin, and then imagine walking away. It’s a conscious effort to not get sucked in to anxiety and rumination, but when I can let things sit on their own, I feel much better.
One of my many composting systems
This practice of letting go, of spiritually composting, has also meant that what comes out is much richer. Processing trauma and examining what is and isn’t useful to us anymore can often provide a fertile ground for self-growth and reflection. When I look at why I was holding on to something, I often find some small revelation about what I need in this current moment, and then I can tend to myself with care.
The next time you feel like 2020 is unsalvageable, give spiritual composting a try. Make a list of the things you’d like to let go of, and then imagine burying them in deep soil to decompose and become the next stage of growth for you.
What seeds will you plant in this fertile ground?