Don't Let the Tomatoes Run the Garden

A garden story about autopilot—and choosing which patterns to tend.

My family's garden is slowly dying back with autumn and I’ve been marveling at the tenaciousness of cherry tomatoes – they are ripe with metaphors. (Sorry. I love a pun, even a bad one.)

Here’s the one I’m mostly thinking about: We planted cherry tomato seedlings a few years ago and they did great. So great that we couldn’t keep up with the harvest and many fell to the ground in squishy little red blobs, like some sort of garden horror show. The next spring, we celebrated when the squishy red blobs had magically replanted themselves and sprouted into new cherry tomato seedlings, which then bore their own fruit, and restarted the cycle. It was like a perpetual motion machine of cherry tomatoes. Delicious!

And…it got me thinking: what in my own life is running in a similar auto-pilot mode? Probably some good things. Also, probably some things that I would like to weed out. The Buddhist concept of karma, as I understand it, is that our thoughts and actions plant seeds that may (depending on causes and conditions, like water, sun, and soil, using the garden metaphor) bear the fruit of similar thoughts and actions in the future. As an example, if you are generous, you are likely to be surrounded by generosity later. If you gossip a lot, you are planting seeds that may bear the fruit of being surrounded by gossip in the future.

I love the concept of karma because it means that we have some agency over the future, if - and it is a big “if” - we’re able to step out of the inertia of our lives long enough to see the cycles and pause them. Unconscious, habitual tendencies are strong. Patterns are tricky to break. But, as Viktor Frankl is quoted as saying: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

If this idea resonates with you, take this email as an open invitation to pause and rest. Rest is a pretty radical idea in our culture that highly values productivity and constant doing. But, rest is also powerful. It gives us the time and space to stop running on auto-pilot mode and make choices that best serve us and those around us. Like Yogi Berra said: “You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you are going, because you might not get there."

Autumn is also a good role model for reflecting, releasing, and replanting. Some leaves fall. And, some of the buds for next year’s leaves are also already on the branches. Cycles continue. What comes next depends on what we plant, water, and tend to. In this spirit of finding space, planting seeds, and growing through cycles, a few poems I've been loving:

• James A. Pearson’s The Trail of Seeds

• John Soos’ Earth Prayer

• Joy Harjo’s Tobacco Origin Story

• And, Octavia F. Raheem’s poetic - if not strictly poems - quotes

If they appeal to you, join me to rest and renew at an upcoming workshop.