There is something magical about Spring, the season in my hemisphere that feels like a waking up, like a rebirth, like a resurrection. The seedlings I planted are peeking out of the soil, growing the roots that I’ll eventually transplant into a garden where summer will transform them into something gigantic and fruitful. But today they are young, small, delicate, yearning, and curious.
There’s so much we can learn from our plant neighbors. As Kaitlin B. Curtice notes in Living Resistance, “If we don’t understand the sacred in a houseplant, we won’t understand the sacred anywhere.”
As with many in my generation, I find myself increasingly surrounded by plants. I am “re-wilding” my world that is largely spent looking at spreadsheets on a computer screen. The plants in my home remind me of our urge to steward the earth, to care for the plants, to be witnesses to life. And in exchange the plants clarify the air in my home and they just are. They remind me that growth is slow and non-linear and flourishing can happen despite a great number of imperfect external factors.
And with the Spring coming the number of plants in my care is rapidly growing. This year I am investing more in herbs. In October when I went to Kenya and came home with some atrocious respiratory illness, I developed a desire to grow a dawa garden. “Dawa” generally refers to medicine in the Kiswahili language, but can specifically refer to a tea that my East African colleagues recommend that I drink every time I am the slightest bit ill. It consists of black tea, lemon, ginger, garlic, and honey. And now I’m watching a bit of future healing spring up in my makeshift greenhouses.
I was recently listening to herbalist Sara Flores who said, “The plant you need the most is the one growing closest to you.” I looked around the room where I was dog-sitting and didn’t see any plants growing, but there on the cover of a book, Salt Houses, was a picture of a poppy growing bright red.
I’ve been thinking a lot about poppies lately, one of Palestine’s national flowers as it grows in abundance in the fields in the springtime. It is often used as a symbol of occupation resistance, representing the way that Palestinians have put their roots into the region expanding from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. I’ve looked at so many pictures of these poppy fields, just emerging without agenda or plan. Just showing up wherever they want, undeterred by efforts to squelch them.
And I’ve been thinking a lot about showing up lately. Over the past year I’ve dedicated so much time to thinking about how I show up - or how I don’t - in my relationships, my work, and our world.
I have learned that I have a tendency to not show up, or not show up fully, in a lot of my life. On the Enneagram I am the most stereotypical of 9s, and by that I mean I want to create peace in my world, and one way that I do that is by merging with others.
In order to maintain harmony and form connections with others I have merged my interests and desires with theirs.
Most of the music that I listen to today can be traced back to the interests of people I thought were cool or boys I had crushes on.
I’ve spent ungodly amounts of money on getting the right outfit for the event that I thought would be most appreciated by the groups of people I find myself around.
I have caused damage to my body because I didn’t want to burden others by saying, “I have horrible blisters on my feet,” or “I need to sit in the front seat or I’ll become unbelievably carsick.” (You know what’s more burdensome? Puking in someone’s car.)
Despite the fact that all of my mentors told me that when I moved to Africa I would have a culture shock experience that would make me turn against local culture, I had much more of a “going native” experience that left me highly empathetic, but also … unwell.
And while I have gotten to be a part of so many good and beautiful things, it’s hard to say how many of those interests generated from within me. An undercurrent of so many of these great people and places was a fear of disconnecting from them, and a fear that showing up fully would cause that disconnection.
I also thought it was a virtue to not show up, thinking that I was putting others first and being selfless. Become all things to all people. But I’m learning, largely through imperfect practicing, that showing up fully as myself is the best way I can show up fully for others.
Showing up fully could look like being honest with my opinions, prioritizing what I want to do, believing that there is value in my perspective, being comfortable in my body, and investing in things that are important to me. It could look like leaving behind the things that don’t align with my values.
I have practiced intentionally speaking up in meetings. I have planned J-cations, which are vacations where I, Jessica, do whatever I want to do. I’ve gone on dates with people I would have previously considered “out of my league.” I have been initiating plans with people who make my world bigger and more joyful. I got a jellyfish tattoo. I have been writing this newsletter.
Some of it has gone well. Some of it has helped me to learn what I don’t want. Some of it has helped me see how to show up well, and ways that I’m not showing up well.
A lot of my planning for and reflecting on showing up happens with my spiritual director, Hailey. We have talked about how I will always be disappointed when my love is performative, because people will always love the person I curate for them, rather than me. And we have talked about how my rehearsing of relationships is a way of trying to control the relationships, rather than being present or loving others in their fullness.
We were reflecting on a conversation I had right before our session, a time when I decided that I was going to be more honest and share some things that I was really excited about, but I had assumed no one else had been interested in.
And when I showed up honestly in this conversation I wasn’t met with animosity or apathy. Instead, I heard, “I’ve been feeling that way too,” and “I’m glad you said that,” and “Tell me more, that’s really interesting.”
When I showed up more honestly as myself instead of the person that I assume they want, I open the door for them to be more fully themselves as well.
“How does it feel to show up unrehearsed?” Hailey asked me.
“Like…a forest,” I said. And we started talking about areas of land that are untouched, just growing wildly, and how beautiful they are.
“Actually,” I said sheepishly, “I call my newsletter Wild Harvests because the baobab tree produces its fruit whenever it wants instead of being cultivated and planned for.”
I saw that I value and enjoy this wildness so much in the world around me, but realized in that moment that I rarely allow that for myself.
We started talking about how I’ve been learning this wild presence, this natural flourishing, from plants. “It’s actually taking me back to Jesus, sitting around looking at lilies.”
Hailey reached for the Bible nearest her, the First Nations Version, a beautiful translation that represents the perspectives of Indigenous people in North America (or Turtle Island). I wanted to hear their words about considering the lilies, words from a people who have put their roots into this land.
“Have you seen how the wildflowers grow in the plains and the meadows? Do you think they work hard and long to clothe themselves?…If Creator covers the wild grass in the plains with such beauty, which is here today and gathered for tomorrow’s fire, will he not take even better care of you?”
I imagined Jesus saying these words not to a field of white lilies all planted in a row, but rather Jesus, the Jewish Palestinian, speaking over the field of wildflowers. The field of poppies.
I have heard these passages so many times and always in the context of worrying about not having enough. But today I hear them addressing the fear of not being enough. What if showing up as we are is enough? What if however we rise up is beautiful and divine?
I thought about the strange looking gourd on my mantel that I am obsessed with, and my affection for warty pumpkins. I am overjoyed by a misshapen vegetable or a tree that’s growing in an unexpected direction. I am so curious to see my seedlings coming up and will share pictures of their future fruits with anyone who will say yes. As well as those who say no.
And the same can be true with how I see myself and others, getting overly excited at however we show up and welcoming the wild harvests within us.
Beauty and belonging is found in just growing alongside others. Full flourishing comes in how we arrive together.
Your opinion and your listening ear is needed and wanted. Initiate doing something you enjoy with the people you enjoy. Eat that food you love. Go out in the world with the audacious conviction that you are loved and will continue to be loved. Consider the wildflowers.
Give yourself permission to show up to this world, unrehearsed and ready to welcome whatever fruit grows from your life, and the fruits that grow from others alongside you.
One way I’m showing up more fully is unabashed promotion of Flint Global, the organization that I’m really proud to work for. Click here to learn more about what we do at Flint and the kinds of fruits we’re privileged to harvest. For more information or to set up a meeting you can email me at jessicamarkwood@flintglobal.org .