The anatomy of slowing down
What is the riddle we are trying to solve?
photo©Erin Johnson a sea of asters
March 9, 2025
The first time I saw how massive a cauliflower plant was in comparison to the head available at the market, I was blown away. The same was true when harvesting ripe strawberries on a warm Friday afternoon. Unfortunately, yet in my favor, only a small percentage made it into the flat, snugly lined with those little molded pulp pints. I’d never tasted something so divine. I was filled with the same awe when I made my first carboy of elderberry mead, saw a hen lay her egg, walked through a cardamon forest in Guatemala, or witnessed the most honorable death of a churro sheep at a late autumn matanza (a centuries-old tradition in New Mexico and the Rio Grande Valley coming from Spain where family or community would come together and prepare meat for winter). These experiences are not hidden, though they often seem to be. One must make an effort, a choice, to put themselves in the way.
I quickly decided that I wanted a life inclusive of technicolor and complexity. Therefore a commitment to remaining open and curious was made. I began to relish the force and energy of nature. And unabashedly started a conversation with it. One of listening, watching, and walking softly. It was in these days that I learned to look up and notice the movement and character of clouds. Knowing that in a day or two rain would be likely. It would send a signal, a scent on the wind.
Larissa Phillips wrote an interesting article that reminded me of this, having lived this way for many years. I’ve now adapted to a semi-urban life. In returning to this lifestyle (having grown up in the bustle of San Francisco’s East Bay) I know one doesn’t have to live on a farm or in the country to access this kind of communion. It’s more like, how can I, once a day or a few times a week, make something fresh, from scratch, in order to keep my senses sharp. How can I use my own two hands and participate or learn an ancestral skill and resist the knee jerk reaction to consume? Most of us like a good home cooked meal. And until we are without this body, hunger is an undeniable force.
I’m not about to issue a call to the masses to return to the land. As we barrel toward an increasingly urban existence, my intention is simply to plant a flag in the age-old place where death and sex and birth are potent forces that don’t go away just because we believe we’re too modern for those things now. You can plant a flag too, wherever you are. Use your hands. Plant seeds on your windowsill. Guard your thoughts like a cranky homesteader who’s seen a thing or two and can’t be bought. Let’s resist! You don’t have to go back to the land to grasp hold of reality.
I live amidst the cars, concrete, and fiber-optic cables of a city…and yes, sometimes it feels impossible at times to tune into the pulse and magic of nature. Unfortunately when something is out of sight or out of mind, it is also out of practice. “Nothing exists unless I maintain it. (By my interest, or my potential interest) hence, I must remain always, both in principle and actively, interested in everything.”—Susan Sontag
Listen, I know for some it’s not worth it to feign interest. However, I do think that our senses benefit from sweetness and equanimity and respite. Are your eyes tired? Can you hear any birdsong? Was your lunch satisfying? I appreciated how Erin put it, “wildness is anywhere that you have eyes to see it, ears to hear it, a mouth to taste it, or a body to feel it. And you just have to open yourself.”
One of the many fake flyer from Nathaniel Russell’s series
They say you need a library and a garden - Enrique Olvera, Mexican chef
The more I contemplate and explore what it means to live slowly, the more I understand why these both serve a deep need. We need places to explore. Places that feed and expand the imagination and are free of judgement, ridicule, or set outcome. Whatever the place may be, radical, random, or mundane, it is useless if abandoned. Having a space for contemplation, reflection, and rest is necessary for the human spirit. It’s not reverie unto itself, rather a means to relax, and as a result fully sense. Admittedly, I yearn for this kind of ruthless solitude.
For the author, Olivia Laing, the garden has been an unexpected retreat, a place of solace and inspiration. I discovered her quirky display of books and campy curios because I am obsessed with the NOWNESS series In Residence. It eventually led me to read her book Everybody: A Book About Freedom (highly recommend) and one of her favorites, Modern Nature by Derek Jarman (also fantastic). Being a modern gardener in an urban world, with its relentless distractions, comparisons, and demands to consume, the garden has quickly evolved as a sanctuary outside of time. It is something I cannot live without. I’m hooked. She is hooked as well.
“The combination of writing and gardening works amazingly well for me. It’s such a nice antidote to writing books. There’s no moment of perfection. You’re always sort of changing things and tweaking things. I don’t have to finish [a garden] and deliver it. I can play with it forever.”
Garden’s lesson of neutrality
There is a neutrality about a garden. In the case of my little micro-farm/garden I’m able to have a palpable dialogue with a force that is as powerful as it is ambivalent. A storm is not malicious. Plants don’t weep at the end of the season. A coyote will kill a chicken in its crepuscular hunt. I feel utterly accepted and at ease.
Because of this I find it very interesting how space makes me feel. And a beautiful space, knowing that this is subjective, makes me feel good. The garden supports an exploration and connection of space and feeling. It is a reflection of the effect hands have on place and time. A garden can be a place to experiment with cohesion, harmony, death, decay, attraction, and perhaps most importantly sensation. The magic is its ability to respond, communicating with the surroundings.
Give it a try. Go outside, look up, maybe get a little dirty. Write a little love note to a tree for its canopy and flexibility and bury it gently at its roots.
For it’s important to remember, as artist Eric N. Mack so simply stated, beauty needs stewards.
Yours, Erin
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