The Seed
And Sensory Memory
Hello Family, Friends, and new Friends,
It’s good to connect with you again. Thank you to those who ordered our book! It was so fun to send out packages with little notes inside. I have plans to make some bookmarks soon, so if you’re still interested in ordering a copy of The Lorica Letters 2024, I will add in the bookmark in the next wave!
One of my favourite authors, Jan Richardson, planted an image in my mind that has stuck with me for a while. It is an image of Eve leaving the garden of Eden with a seed between her teeth, or under her tongue.
Eve knew she chose to take the fruit. What she had taken hidden inside her mouth was a reminder. Yet it was different than the fruit. It was a piece of the fruit but it was not the fruit itself. She knew she had taken something and she could not return it. She had obtained the knowledge of the fruit and now she would have to work backwards and learn wisdom by living with what she had taken.
Richardson continues to describe how “In her desire, Eve commits herself to the requirement of every quest: exile. We cannot stretch beyond ourselves and yet cling to what we have known.” p. 29
In her exile, I wonder how Eve created a sensory memory. I wonder how Eve felt every time she looked at a fruit tree or felt any kind of desire to eat something sweet from a tree (I know how I love fruit), how she would look at the remaining seed and think of beauty and what could come of it? How would she feel it in her body? How was the act of holding a seed between her teeth the beginning of the process of moving through discovering who she was created to be? How did she learn to claim her story and take the seed and continue to grow and learn?
The kids and I love to watch Bible Project videos together. The first video in their latest series got me thinking of this topic too. They describe how “Every command in the Bible is an invitation to find life.” A negative commandment not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil is balanced by a positive commandment — to eat from every other tree. They describe how this first command sets the stage for “how to discover life and the wisdom of God within [each] command” and how it is a riddle for us to meditate on what the command is really about. I imagine Eve, actively mediating with the seed between her teeth, rolling the words of God around in her mouth, wondering what was next for her.
***
Here I am — my dreams,
hidden seed between my teeth —
desiring beauty.
***
Zak and I finally started our seeds indoors. We’d decided that we wouldn’t plant too many indoors and try to direct seed as many plants as we can when it’s warm enough. Somehow we still maxed out our seed trays and our kitchen counter is covered with the little seedlings.
I watched the plants he’d started for over a week before I finally got to planting my own choices of seedlings. I knew it wouldn’t take too long to do, but I was preparing to leave on retreat and there were so many things I wanted to do before I left. So I kept putting off the seed planting. I finally did it in stages. On day I filled the trays with soil, the next day I placed the seeds in their rows. It happened 1 hour before I had to leave for my flight.
We have also been doing some pruning and garden bed preparations. We’ve had some beautiful days between some very rainy and dreary cold days. One sunny day I sat in the strawberry patch and removed some brush and dandelion taproots. I’m preparing space to plant some asparagus crowns between the berries. They are known companion plants and I’m hoping the asparagus will help suppress all the weeds that are growing around the strawberries or vice versa.
We have been making tiny harvests from our garden. The chives started to grow and we have Johnny Jump Ups (wild pansies) popping up everywhere. I think we may need to dig up a few and give them to friends! We like to add them to salads for some purple and yellow pop. I don’t have a recipe to share today — this was a dill, chive, cucumber, radish and lemon salad. I think I went a little overboard on the herbs!
Zak and the kids spent one sunny afternoon putting in fertilizer stakes under many of the trees we’ve planted — fruit trees and evergreen trees.
Thank you for joining us on our journey inward through the garden. Please let us know, how is your garden doing? What are you looking forward to this season? What seeds have you planted? What are your dreams for your garden?
Avery, Zak, Llewyn, and Junia