The Wisdom of Spring: Trust the Unfolding

To honour Earth Day, we’re delighted to share insights from Mick McEvoy of the Happy Farm and rewilding projects. Mick offers simple, nourishing practices and reflections inspired by the spring to help you care for your own well-being, and touch the insight of interbeing between people, plants, all beings and the Earth.

Whose Land am I on?

The core of the Happy Farm and rewilding project is our one-year program, which stretches from early spring to late winter the next year and offers friends in our community an opportunity to practice and work together. This programme honours the flow of the seasons. To begin we contemplate deeply – whose land is this? A grounding contemplation with our ancestors.

With spring’s arrival we welcomed a new family of Happy Farmers to Plum Village. We always begin together with this ancestral contemplation. I invite you to begin together with us. Whether you are in the middle of the city or in the countryside I urge you to ground yourself into the land on which you stand and ask yourself, “whose land am I on?”.

Take some time. Stop and ground yourself in the present moment. Contemplate Thay’s teachings on our blood, spiritual and land ancestors. Does my blood family have a relationship with this land I stand on? Do my spiritual ancestors share a relationship with this land? Who are the land ancestors who have made this place home for generation after generation. Finally, we contemplate on our more than human ancestors who belong to this land. I always open our Sacred Ecology retreats in Plum Village with this land acknowledgement:

Take some time to look deeply. Aim to cultivate humility and gratitude. Together we can all cultivate right relationship with the land that is always caring for us all. Waking up. Going slow.

The Wisdom of Spring

In Spring we often observe the cold blooded lizards and snakes, recently awakened from hibernation as they bask in the sunshine to warm up. As spring arrives it brings its energy of renewal, new life and resurrection. Inspired by how our reptile kin go slow and take their time in this new season I aim to also take my time in my work on the land. Not to let habit energies of getting things done overtake this natural rhythm of the slow reawakening of life in this season.

Waking up from winter I also aspire to offer space and time to the new Happy Farm family to go slowly as we begin our new year together. But just like the lizards and snakes, when I have to move quickly I know I can and that is fine because with the arrival of spring the reality is we have a lot to do.

Cultivating Harmony and Trust in Community

We are blessed to share this wild land with many families of wild boar (wild pigs). When we are lucky to see them out foraging at dusk we observe that they travel together in large community groups. These communities are intergenerational from the huge matriarchs and patriarchs to the cutest little piglets. My observation is that they cultivate harmony in their community together amongst the generations. Seeing how they live in harmony together on the land I aspire to cultivate harmony in the Happy Farm community.

This Happy Farm family of humans is also intergenerational. This year the eldest is 63 and the youngest 23. Inspired by our wild boar kin I aim to cultivate harmony in our community and to lead this human family with love in all that we do together. Not knowing. Trust the unfolding. Every spring brings a new team of people to the Happy Farm.

Every spring brings a new season of cultivating food for our community and a new season of growth and regeneration to our rewilding lands. Will the new Happy Farm team gel well together? Will the new growing season bring steadiness and abundance of food for our community? I don’t know. I can’t know. This season calls on me to cultivate trust and patience. To be ok with not knowing. Not knowing how things will work out. To accept the not knowing and to observe and trust the unfolding of the new season and what it will bring. Trust the flow of the new team as they find their stride. Trust that the farm will come back to life after winter. Trust that the seeds we sow in the nursery will grow well. Trust that the soil on the farm that we prepared will support life once more. Trust that the young plants we offer to the Earth will prosper. Just because it happened before, over many past spring seasons there are no guarantees for this spring.

This season calls on me to cultivate trust and patience. To be ok with not knowing. Not knowing how things will work out. To accept the not knowing and to observe and trust the unfolding of the new season and what it will bring.

Woodland wildflowers like bluebells and wild daffodils will complete their growth and flowering before the forest canopy closes over and the new leaves on the trees block out the sunlight. This ancient relationship demonstrates the wisdom of flow and succession in the choreography of spring. Observing the wisdom of the plant communities in the forests of this land I aspire to trust the wisdom, flow and succession as the spring season unfolds for our new team and for the land. I pledge to do my best to cultivate ease and acceptance of not knowing, trusting it will be ok.

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished

Reflective Practices

If you feel called to learn from the wisdom of spring here are a few practices you could explore.

Write about interactions you have with the natural world, plants and animals. Explore any encounters, behaviours and relationships you may observe and contemplate what they may be teaching you. Bear witness to the wisdom of spring by spending time in a ‘sit spot’. A sit spot is a place in nature that you can simply spend time in regularly on your own without any devices. It should be easy to access and somewhere you can feel safe and comfortable. Maybe bring your nature journal with you or simply just sit quietly and observe the spring. This can also be practiced in an urban environment, perhaps if there is a little corner of greenery to explore.

Create time to practice walking meditation outdoors, ideally in nature with the spirit of aimless wandering. Nowhere to go and nothing to do. Again leave your devices behind. You can also practice aimless wandering in an urban environment. Connect with the soil under the concrete and the sky above you. Walk as if you are a free person.

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