The Compost Pile

Kim and I were in a pretty foul mood when we started building our structure for the compost heap.  Although we've been having some very great experiences on the land, being on a steep learning curve as we are can be fraying on one's nerves.  Add to this a three year old nipping at your heals for this that or the other.  It was the formula for a moody cloud hanging over us that morning.

After I dropped Bodhi off at school, I went back to the land to work on some of the projects Kim and I had set up for ourselves.  The first on the agenda was the compost heap.  We really needed to get this done.  Over the past week of being on the land we managed to produce four five gallon buckets of our humanure.  We are on our last bucket and the saw dust was only inches away from touching our butts every time we sat on the toilet.  The first thing Kim wanted to do was talk about what we needed to do.  I on the other hand, just wanted to do the things we needed to do.  As we sat and made a list of the things we needed to get done, it started to rain.  "Great!", I thought to myself, now we have to work in the wet weather.  As soon as we were done with the list, I began grabbing the tools and building materials we needed for the compost pile.  Kim noticed the sullen look on my face and began asking me what's wrong?  Obviously, our male and female energies were clashing.  I told her that for now I would like to just get the things we need to get done, done.

It was interesting how building this structure together performed some kind of exorcism on Kim and I.  As we put the wooden pallets together and nailed some boards up for support, we began to feel lighter and the sun actually started coming out.  After we put the final boards in and wrapped around some sun shade to keep potential critters out we felt like we had sweated out the vinegar that had been coursing through our veins that morning.  We high fived and smiled at each other knowing how silly our bickering had been earlier that morning.

We lined the bottom of the structure with some straw and got ready to dump the buckets.  You know there is the expression we use about a cocky person, "He thinks his shit doesn't stink."  Well, I can say with the utmost humility that mine doesn't.  My gag reflexes were standing at the start line waiting to hurl forward the moment I opened the lid on the first bucket.  It didn't smell like roses by any stretch of the imagination, but it didn't have any strong foul odor.  It was like a clean barn, completely tolerable.

The structure stands away from the cabin, but it is within sight.  I like looking at it.  It serves several purposes for me.  It reminds me of what a great team Kim and I are together.  It also helps me remember that sometimes it's just not worthwhile to hold on to your crap.  It's better to just release it.  We all have stuff we are working through.  I don't think we would be walking this planet if we didn't.  The question is, how willing are we to let go of all that shhhtuff?

Thich Nhat Hanh, the great Vietnamese Buddhist Monk, talks about it in terms of the connectivity of life. He encourages his students not to label things good or bad.  He suggests rather that we look at things as they are.  The rose is beautiful and smells wonderful at one moment and the next it is dying and decaying.  Yet this decaying rose can be placed back on the earth and create the fertile soil needed to produce another generation of roses.  There is no good or bad in this, it all just is.  It's the same with my literal and figurative crap.  Some day my literal shhhtuff will help the garden grow, learning from my figurative shhhtuff and releasing it will someday help me blossom as well.