shoveling muck (erin jean warde)
I hold onto the hope that this is part of the transformation, part of how I am being readied to return to the earth out of which I was made.
shoveling muck
I developed a new relationship with mud. Instead of trying to protect myself from it, I became oblivious to it, noticing its presence only when I would go back to the house and see strands of algae caught in my hair or the water in the shower turning decidedly brown. I came to know the feel of the gravelly bottom below the muck, the sucking mud by the cattails and the cold stillness where the bottom dropped away from the shallows. Transformation is not accomplished by tentative wading at the edge.
I am, by no choice of my own, in the muck. The water of my life feels decidedly brown. It is a comfort to me to envision myself in Kimmerer’s pond—feeling myself immersed in the grime, the sucking mud, the cold stillness. Not because I like the idea of swimming through water not fit for swimming, to move algae out in hopes it would become a place I wish to wade into, but because I have no other place to be. Kimmerer shows us a willing movement into the mud, but what about when the descent is not a wading, but the sudden force on your back that startles you, shoving you in, leaving tracks behind you to show where you dug in your heels but only felt yourself slide down into the brown and further into the green?
There is, of course, a difference between the choice to develop a new relationship with mud and the way life often forces us to forge something new out of a reality we would have never chosen. But her wisdom is true regardless—transformation is not accomplished by tentative wading at the edge. You don’t clean out the mud from a distance; the mud always requires you to come closer than you originally planned, eventually pulling you in. The only difference is how deep the tracks are behind you, how much you dig in your heels.
Shoveling muck is like trying to catch wind in a butterfly net.
I wonder sometimes as I read through Braiding Sweetgrass if Robin Wall Kimmerer would love or hate Ecclesiastes 1. (My completely uneducated guess is that she would find parts of it true and parts of it to question, which would simply be a healthy reading of Scripture.) Ecclesiastes 1 keeps popping up in my mind:
The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:
“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”
What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?
Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.
There is something about the robust proclamation of meaninglessness that I think, in some ways, conveys a deep meaning. Because, if we read it closely, the faithfulness of the earth and the One who made it is, in fact, the deep meaning. How the cycles of the world remain steadfast, given as a form of grace. So, it’s not a proclamation of meaningless entirely, but a reminder of the frailty of our lives in it. Yet, when we are remembered through the power of the Spirit, when we return to the earth out of which we were made, and when we are joined to the One who made it—aren’t we then no longer subjected to meaninglessness, but now assumed into the faithfulness of God that transforms our death into life? Just as the streams return to where they come from, do we not then return to the Spirit out of which we came—and in doing so—find that we have been ransomed from the meaninglessness we once knew as life?
I find the power of this cyclical nature in Kimmerer’s words, the reminder that though shoveling muck is like trying to catch wind in a butterfly net, there does come a day when blobs of green are laid in the sun to become sheets that bring us the gift of humus
Such a responsibility I have to those people and these trees, left to me, an unknown come to live under the guardianship of the twins, with a bond physical, emotional, and spiritual. I have no way to pay them back. Their gift to me is far greater than I have ability to reciprocate.
And yet, even the meaninglessness of our current labor is not in vain. There is a profound responsibility in this life, out of which we are given the chance to tend to the guardianship of the earth out of which we are made. It makes me wish Ecclesiastes had been more specific, because surely there are labors in this life that are worthy of our breath, though certainly many of my labors will not be remembered in the fullness of time. It is the labors that will go forgotten in the full expanse of eternity that must be held in conversation with their futility. Because life includes labor, whether it is the best use of our time or not, because we are directed by the current ways of life as we know it. But every time I wade into the muck to take an inventory of my life, the transformation will likely teach me which labors will be remembered in the fullness of time, and which will be forgotten, and in knowing the difference I might be able to choose the better part, the labor that will not be rendered entirely meaningless when I am ransomed from labor entirely.
Balance is not a passive resting place—it takes work, balancing the giving and the taking, the raking out and the putting in.
Balance is a constant craving, and an elusive beast to crave. But I imagine it must be found inside the muck, not apart from it. And not from the safety of the shore, but from the center of the abyss of brown. I certainly know I am in that very center now, and I hold onto the hope that this is part of the transformation, part of how I am being readied to return to the earth out of which I was made.
I admit that I could not write much on the chapter titled Witch Hazel, because my sister’s name is Hazel and I found it quite tender to my heart. However, “there is no hurt that cannot be healed by love” rings true, and I hold onto that hope like I hold onto the hope for transformation. My movement into the muck left behind the deepest tracks from my heels, but I am here in the center regardless, as life and death take no mind to my will. She is seemingly gone, gone with the wind, but I know I can feel her on a breezy day, and in the wind of the Spirit who is my wonderful counselor.
I hope you are enjoying Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
Here’s the reading schedule in pages, by the week:
Week of…
January 23 — 60-97
January 30 — 98-117
February 6 — out of office
February 13 — 118-201
February 20 — 202-240
February 27 — 241-276
March 6 — 277-300
March 13 —301-347
March 20 — 348-384
out of office
I will be out of office February 6-10. For this reason, I won’t have posts for that week, and I have combined some reading for Braiding Sweetgrass. This is reflected in the adapted reading schedule above! Thank you so much for understanding. <3