"I Don't Supervise, Pattie. I Free People."

So, I have to be honest with you, there's some strife in the community garden. Power. Personalities. Pace. Even the possibility that grown-ups who have agreed to the mission and methods of this organic garden are sneaking in petroleum-based fertilizers, which, of course, would mean, if true, we could no longer assure those particular plots as organic to future gardeners. I go out to the fifteen beds of my kitchen garden--a full quarter the size of the community garden--and revel in the peace and privacy of it. It's like a community garden without people. Sort of heavenly, isn't it?

Or is it?

I thought maybe my work was done at the community garden, that I'm a start-up person, that it was time to move on and start the next thing, to leave the bickering to others. But considering the garden has only been open two months (if you can believe it), that seems awfully premature, don't you think? How can I help my community take positive steps forward if I don't even stay engaged? How can I help myself grow and change if I don't allow the lessons of this journey to reveal themselves to me? How can I deny myself the opportunity of wrestling through the challenges? How can I distance myself from something I have grown to love?

And so, it has been a whirlwind week of trying to focus on positive intention, compassion, and generosity. It has involved reading, talking, inspirational movie-watching (thanks, Angela), yoga, walking, and lots and lots of letting go. It has involved digging in my garden and digging deep in my soul. It has involved moments of just showing up when that was the most I could offer. And it has involved stepping back, especially when my teenage daughter said to me, "Wow, Mom, when did your life become such a soap opera?" She knows I don't live this way, with out-of-control interpersonal drama. I left that long ago when I left my corporate jobs. After 14 years of running my own business, I have gotten used to my solitary, entrepreneurial ways of working. This whole group-decision-making process is contradictory to my basic operating style, and frankly, is hard for me.

The moment of truth came the other day, unexpectedly, as truth tends to do. I had asked several garden members to join Team Beer Compost, to help toss those spent grains from the brewery with wood chips and leaves so that others on the garden board of directors didn't need to worry about it. Several said immediate yeses, and I planned on meeting one of them today. Yet a few days ago, we ran into each other in the garden and got to talking. He embraced the challenge so fully that I asked him, "So will you supervise this project?"

He answered me immediately, without even thinking.

"I don't supervise, Pattie," he stated. "I free people."

I free people.

I free people.

The words punctured the air. Honestly, I couldn't speak.

And so, of course, I've been rolling those words around in my head ever since, and wondering:

How do I find a way to work within the ever-growing list of rules and policies and procedures that are developing around this garden to help free people, and in doing so, to free myself?

Yesterday, I stopped by a community garden in a nearby city and was surprised to find a lock on the gate where there hadn't been one before. My research has shown that community gardens with locks on them actually experience increased vandalism than those without. Mike, if you're reading this, can you shed some light on why that garden now has a lock? Is it a problem that has yet to rear its head at ours, but for which I need to mentally prepare?



Or is your just-a-few-months-older-than-ours garden experiencing a similar lock-down on letting go and trusting the journey, too?

How can we free people to achieve the seemingly impossible? How can we let go and soar? Does the lack of a strong, oppressive thumb inevitably lead to anarchy? Or could it, perhaps, lead to something far more beautiful than we can currently imagine?

(P.S. The photo at the top is not from our community garden. It is from the location we had been previously considering for the garden, a place still under lock and key.)

"I Don't Supervise, Pattie. I Free People."