Goodwork Almanac

Goodwork

  • Replacing your lawn

    Photo by Shazard R. on Pexels.com

    I cannot think of a more tedious and wasteful chore than the upkeep of the typical lawn. Personally, I have always detested the work required to maintain a lawn and have somehow been roped into caring for one in some form or another since I was a kid. Pushing a lawnmower around in the summer heat, watering on a schedule, fertilizing, weeding, troubleshooting dead or dying grass with any number of issues. And for what? The fruit tree bears fruit and the lawn gives us work, that is all it does.

    While this is meant as a how-to, I have inadvertently begun this article as a why-to. For me and for many others, there are ample reasons to get rid of a part of (or the entirety of) your lawn. 65% of homeowners now prefer a lower maintenance yard. And there are promising trends in the percentage of people investing in sustainable or edible gardens, pollinator gardens, as well as drought-tolerant plants and landscape designs.

    There are some other promising and useful statistics out there as to the incentives to replacing a lawn. Sufficient landscaping can reduce the heat of an area anywhere from 5-10 degrees. Native plants use 50-75% less water than turfgrass, landscaping mulch can prevent erosion, and xeriscaping saves 50-70% on water bills. Native landscaping cuts pesticide use by 80%. Bird-friendly landscaping can increase bird populations 40%.

    There’s a lot there to unpack, and some incentive for just about anybody. Lawns can cost some real dough – the average family spends about $500 per year on landscaping services but that does not factor in time and energy spent by the average American taking care of their own lawn or yard, not to mention the amount of money spent on water, tools, and materials if one would do this work themselves. Switching to a lower maintenance yard can save money, and that money saved year after year after year is going to mean the kind of green you can really get enthusiastic about!

    If you are interested in being a part of the natural landscape and being involved in the wildlife of your area, then you’ve got all the motive in the world! Helping bugs and birds thrive, making your yard more habitable to everything (including YOU), and being able to enjoy the beauty of a cultivated but wild landscape that bursts with color and life. Sounds like a dream!

    Elements to include when replacing your lawn

    Flat and green. Low-maintenance ground covers can be drought-tolerant, foot traffic tolerant, require little mowing or none at all, and can still provide the blank canvas for activity that a lawn is typically sought out for. Families with children who want a large, open area to play in seem to gravitate toward flat groundcovers that still look healthy and feel comfortable on the bare foot, should the need arise.

    Photo by Ted GoldBerg on Pexels.com

    For low maintenance groundcovers, I would recommend the gardener to look into blue star creeper, Corsican mint, veronica, clover, or creeping thyme. These grow very low to the ground and require little to no maintenance, can be tolerant to foot traffic, and even have little blossoms that can be a pretty addition to a lawn which grasses do not provide. Preferences will decide which would be most suitable to your landscape and climate, as well as your personal taste in aesthetic. Mixing and matching could create a neat patchwork of different smells, textures, and appearances that would make your lawn even more interesting.

    Rocks. I think the strategic use of rocks in landscaping can add interesting texture and naturalistic aesthetics to the yard. But when they are used incorrectly, they can add a lot of headache and extra work. I have seen people spread rocks over the entire surface of their yard, acting as a mulch. The issue with this is that rocks make reworking the landscape much more difficult. If you need to access irrigation or replace older plants, you are in for quite the chore moving layers of rock whereas a true mulch is lightweight and easy to work with.

    Photo by Haneul Trac on Pexels.com

    Another issue with rock as a mulch is that it absorbs heat, often making your yard or garden noticeably hotter and more uncomfortable during the afternoon or early evening hours, when you are most likely to be in your yard or garden. Many people think that putting down weed barrier or landscaping cloth then covering it with rock will be a great way to prevent weeds and reduce their need to water. While this certainly does reduce the need to water, weed seeds will still accumulate in the nooks and crannies between rocks and will sprout on top of the weed barrier and grow well with relatively little material for their roots to grow in – I mean, these are weeds, there’s a reason they are hard to get rid of: they grow really well in just about anything! Then you will be forced to kneel down in the rock mulch (ouch) while it radiates its heat (oof) as you pick through layer after layer of rock to pull the weeds out (yikes).

    If your goal is to reduce weeds and watering, I would recommend filling your landscape with native plants and a deep mulch of some lightweight material. The native plants will not require much watering, if chosen for your climate, and the deep mulch will retain more moisture and reduce weeds while feeding the soil as it degrades.

    As for the proper use for rocks, I would recommend using them sparingly to outline beds, separate different slopes to prevent erosion, or to accent natural features. When used with the other elements listed here, they can provide a lot of different benefits to a varied and interesting garden.

    Native plants. Obviously, this was going to be mentioned several times in this post. The interest in lower maintenance or sustainable gardening is on the rise and native plants are the mainstay of these new gardens. They are naturally adapted to your environment and so require the conditions that are readily available in your area – they do not need extra care or extra labor to thrive. There are so many different types to choose from that the combinations are nearly endless. Flowering perennials are my favorite, as I love to watch them return in the spring to signal the end of another long winter, and then to follow their progress through the season. I love to see them grow tall, flower, attract insects and birds, and finally to fade and decorate the landscape once more in the fall. But you can also spread seeds of annuals in the spring and watch them burst into life.

    Photo by Aliaksei Semirski on Pexels.com

    You can grow just for greenery. You can choose your plants so that something is always in bloom throughout the year. You can attract specific types of wildlife if you do a little research to see what they like to eat or where they like to make their homes. Something will always grow in the garden, whether weed or flower, why not choose what grows and make it something useful, productive, and beautiful?

    Water features. This is a landscaping element that often gets left out of the garden plan. But if your goal is to attract all sorts of life to your garden, you’ll want some type of water feature. You can start fairly cheap with bird baths or basins or introduce a pump and some power to make flow. Building a shallow pond could provide the habitat for a frog’s entire lifecycle, or the breeding grounds for dragon flies, damsel flies, and a dozen other insects.

    Photo by Emir on Pexels.com
    Photo by Daijon J on Pexels.com
    Photo by Mark Thomas on Pexels.com
    Photo by Liz Earl on Pexels.com

    Edible landscapes. Nowadays, I get caught up in the perennials and the habitat aspects of gardening but it wasn’t long ago that I focused almost entirely on productive edible gardening. For most people, when they hear gardening they think of vegetable gardens. I would love if one day I could have thousands of square feet for gardening fruits and vegetables but right now I content myself with what I can grow in my containers.

    Photo by Ingemund Sku00e5lnes on Pexels.com

    An edible garden doesn’t have to be your main source of food or even very serious, it can be a handful of heirloom tomato plants because you like the taste of fresh summer tomatoes, or pumpkins because you like to watch them vine. Many people have found joy in raising a vegetable garden and harvesting delicious food, along with raising chickens or goats in their yards too. Having an edible landscape is nice because it reminds you of your intimate link with nature. Food does not come from a shelf or a bag, it must be grown. Whatever one can do to increase their relationship with this process, it does something to help with mind and spirit.

    Trees in your landscape can reduce ambient temperatures and create a pleasant atmosphere while providing habitat for local birds and insect life. Mulch can increase soil moisture and lessen your water bill. Water features will attract all sorts of life from all around. But at the end of the day, make sure to provide a space and habitat for that one elusive creature that keeps the garden going year after year – you! Plan walkable paths, beautiful aesthetics, relaxing corners, and mobility-friendly plans that do not put a huge strain on your body. Raised beds can reduce your need to stoop or bend. The right tool can reduce your work by half and make it more enjoyable in the meantime. Make sure you can easily gain access to any part of the yard or garden that you would like to interact with or work on. And whatever you decide to do for your yard and garden, make sure it is something you care about and have a passion for, something that you are excited to see in the morning and tend to in the evenings.

    My yard is around 900 square feet. Because it is a rental, it is part lawn and part gravel. If it was my yard, I would plant two or three trees, some flowering shrubs, build ten or so raised beds for vegetables and then border the fence with all sorts of perennials. I would have a small pond for frogs, toads, insects, and birds. Maybe some bird feeders and houses for the odd robin that wants to make this their home. I like to imagine what a space could be and to imagine the changes I could make to the wildlife in the area, as well as to my own wellbeing. It would feel good to take a barren yard and to create a little oasis. These are the things I love, what kind of yards and gardens do you love? Make it your own!

  • Project Milkweed

    Cultivating the Monarch

    Monarch butterflies roosting by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0
    Monarch caterpillar on common milkweed by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0
    Monarch butterfly stages of development by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

    Driving by the irrigation ditches in the countryside, you see them pop up out of the grass, open their otherworldly flowers, and sag in late summer with their seed pods. Milkweed grows in the most unassuming and difficult spots. And I would see them mowed down or pulled out of the edges of people’s landscaping and it felt like a kind of insult. Something so weird and spectacular and thriving in the most difficult circumstances, cut down without a second thought. The world must go on but we don’t have to be anything like the world. I love milkweed and I want to cultivate it as widely as I can. I want to sow its seeds in the soil of the mind.

    Milkweed is the primary source of food for the Monarch butterfly in their caterpillar stage. The black, yellow, and white striped caterpillars are beautiful to behold and seem made for milkweed as a natural pair of alien creatures. The Monarch’s numbers dwindle and struggle with continued loss of habitat and its main host plant, the lovely milkweed.

    This is where we may enter, if we wish. A long time ago, I noticed a tenacious milkweed plant setting its strange-looking seed pods at the edge of a field butting up against my vegetable garden. In the beginning of winter, I took a seed pod and opened it to collect the seeds. I spread them in the field and in the garden. I took some home to winterize them, a practice called ‘cold-stratifying’. In the spring, I planted the seeds and hoped they would flourish.

    If you decide to undertake this project with me, be careful when handling any part of the milkweed plant. They exude chemicals which can really irritate your skin and eyes. I knew this in theory but still learned the hard way when handling the seeds. Don’t repeat my mistake!

    The plants sprouted and rose to about five or six inches tall. I was elated. Then the heat of late summer hit, they didn’t grow much more, and the first frosts of fall came with no promises for next season. When the following spring came (this spring, 2026), I waited for the first signs of milkweed coming up. I was pleasantly surprised to see a handful had survived the dry winter.

    We did not get as many as we would have liked but it was a blessing even to get a few in our garden. As stated in previous posts, I would be ecstatic if we got a Monarch to visit our garden and would be surprised if they selected our garden to lay their eggs but we still keep hope alive.

    Monarch butterflies will overwinter in Mexico and then migrate North during the summer months, searching for milkweed on which to lay eggs. I have not personally seen them use any milkweed plants in our area but that is also because the plants are few and far between.

    The goal of this project is to spread the milkweed plant in order to cultivate more breeding grounds for the Monarch. It is a project I hold dear and which is in its initial stages, to be frank. I have about three clumps of milkweed in my garden and cannot do much more, as I rent my current living space. I figure every little bit helps for now but I dream of one day being able to plant whole fields of milkweed and to witness the Monarch migration and to be part of it in some humble way. I also wanted to spread awareness and invite others to be part of the project as well.

    There are many resources online to assist in this aim. You can order milkweed seeds online or get them from local vendors. There are several types of milkweed to select from. Showy Milkweed and Common Milkweed are the most frequently recommended for growers in North America, though do your research as to the types which are native to your area or would thrive the best in your climate.

    Adult monarchs also need nectar, meaning other plants can be valuable in their lifecycle as well. Blanketflower, aster, and many types of Goldenrod can provide nectar for the adult butterflies, while your milkweed provides a home and food for the larvae. Avoid using insecticides and other chemicals that may damage the lifecycle of insects in your garden.

    One may also spread milkweed seeds in marginal spaces or wild areas. I take pleasure in my evening walks when I pass by a few milkweed plants that thrive in the stone borders of a neighbor’s yard, just outside their fence. No one seems to mind their presence and they are typically allowed to grow to maturity throughout the season.

    I always keep my eye out for any Monarchs that may use these as a home for their larvae. And I hope nobody cuts them down, taking them for a nuisance weed. We focus on what we can control. Adding a few clumps of milkweed to our gardens may not seem like much but if many people did this, there would be many potential sites for a Monarch to choose from. Every little bit helps.

    I will continue to document the efforts of Project Milkweed in future posts and will, of course, provide updates if a Monarch chooses our garden as a home. This is one of those long term projects that takes place over the course of a lifetime. Each year I hope to do a little more and to bear witness to the growth of it.

  • Midsummer

    Growth is not the Goal

    We have arrived at the longest day of the year once again. With this and other astronomical events, I have always enjoyed a meditative pause on the passage of time, the slow evolution of the season, and the deepest expressions of nature that pour out of every corner of the landscape and become like recognizable features of a close friend. You can get to know them and see their moods and traits returning each year and you can celebrate them and love them. This year is no different. We celebrate the longest day, bask in the generous helping of summer light that we are given, and meditate on what this means in itself as well as what it means for the months to follow.

    As I look around the landscape, it is overflowing with lush, green foliage that felt almost impossible just four months ago. The longer days give themselves to an abundance of activity and you can see it in the faces of the people you pass in the street. We are all going somewhere, doing more and planning more, overwhelmed with the possibility a day holds which in winter was only a hope. Getting off of work in the dark does not really add to one’s motivation but when the sun is out until nearly nine o’clock, suddenly the day takes on so much added possibility, you are inclined to take advantage of the extra time. We may never think of it consciously but our internal clock, the wisdom of our bodies, remembers the cold and dark nights that last so long in December and January. It is urging us to explode with as much life as the landscape in which we find ourselves.

    It is important to stop and note this longest day, as it will soon recede into late summer evenings, and then the crisp days of fall and finally, like a rising tide, the winter will come again. On some level, we must remember how constraining the winter can be so that we can more fully enjoy this summer season. Here we stand on the precipice and then we begin our descent again. It is a time filled with meaning and passion, here for us to act upon if we wish.

    Nature provides us with many relevant metaphors for the living of our own lives and this season is no different. I looked around the garden the other day and realized an important truth about gardening and life in the midst of June: everything is overgrown and almost heavy with life and yet this pinnacle of light, the solstice, cannot be considered the end goal of all this abundant growth. It is almost as if this outpouring of growth is the construction of an intricate background which will decorate the stage on which the real activity will begin to play itself out. Growth is not the goal. Growth alone cannot be called fulfillment or purpose. Growth plays toward the fulfillment of some purpose outside of itself.

    Imagine a fruit tree which becomes dense with new branches and leaves in the spring and is thickly covered over with this life in midsummer. How ridiculous it would be to assume that this was the endgame of all its efforts. Of course, we can say, this is only really the beginning of its effort to set flower and fruit, to become full and heavy by late summer and fall, to strive toward that all-out expression called the harvest. The attainment of perfect expression for a flower is its open blossom, not the thicket of greenery it produces in late spring. All of its effort in unfurling its leaves is effort towards attainment beyond itself.

    Growth is not fulfillment. There is a distinct difference between growth in certain areas of your life and finding purpose and fruition in these areas. The difference can be seen in the separation of quantitative measures of success and qualitative measures of success. You may have a lot of money – this is quantitative success. But what are you able to do with it? This would be a qualitative answer. You find yourself overwhelmed with activity and surrounded by relationships but what meaning do they create, where are they going? You build muscle in the gym, maybe lose a certain amount of weight, you can lift XYZ number of pounds in deadlift or squat. But what do you do with your bodily strength and energy? Perhaps you build strength for its own sake but the purpose of strength can be found in some applied good, some purpose outside of itself.

    This midsummer, I wanted to meditate on the idea of measuring success qualitatively. We may be used to ascribing a numerical value to our successes because this is the easiest way to measure progress but our progress can also come in how we feel in our daily lives. We can progress in how much we believe in the effectiveness of our effort, how much we believe in our internal locus of control, essentially. The timid and unsure novice attains experience, mistakes, and finally the proof of their success. The evidence of their success may be quantitative but the fact that they proved to themselves that they were capable is a qualitative measure. We could measure our success by the level of independence we have created – perhaps we no longer rely on the day job and we can do more of the things we are truly passionate about.

    A huge achievement for many would be creating a life you do not want to escape from. This cannot easily be measured quantitatively, it is a quality of life we must find for ourselves. Doing the same things with much less fear and anxiety is a massive success but a success which is not as easily measured as money in the bank. Some people work tirelessly for tangible wealth while others work to be free from the people their circumstance has forced them to be around. Being able to live your life around the people you most want to spend your time with is a win. It means bliss and success.

    Often, we get entranced by convincing others we are doing well rather than pursuing the goal of actually doing well. Proving our success often inherently comes with quantitative measures, as that is the easiest thing for others to see and measure in someone else’s life. How many houses and cars do you own, how many vacations do you take, the list goes on. But the qualitative measures are personal, refined, and difficult to express to someone other than ourselves. Contentment, fulfillment, purpose, a commitment to life, a meaningful connection to others. These can be difficult to measure and difficult to display for others but if you have a trained eye you can recognize it right off.

    When you see someone truly living in their purpose, there is a hint of it in every move they make and every word they speak. They live comfortably in the world and in their skin without being affected by others or by circumstance. Their preternatural calm is infectious, their faith in themselves and their abilities dyes every moment with confidence. If you are attuned to this reality, you can see it. If you are not, you will be looking for some sign or quantity with which to measure their success and you will lose yourself to irrelevant calculations.

    This is not meant to discard quantitative measures entirely. This is not meant to dismiss growth in all areas of your life as unimportant. Because growth, in us as in the natural world, must precede the deeper expressions we can make of ourselves. As I mentioned earlier, the massive undertaking of growth in spring, at its height in midsummer, sets the stage for the fruition that takes place later. Wealth, strength, influence, connection – growth in these areas is an important prerequisite for qualitative success in other areas. Having resources means having more options, which means having the responsibility of impactful decisions. Having strength and energy means having the ability to do more for others and for yourself, it means developing a larger bandwidth for life, to show up for your relationships and community in ways you would not be able to if you had not developed such a capacity.

    The key is not to get caught up in quantitative measures for themselves. This is where shallow obsession with cash comes from. This is where the hyperfixation on GDP and economic growth comes from, separated from wellbeing and standard of living. Steroid abuse, diet trends, quick fix drugs, destructive mentalities tied to impersonal measures of success. The capacity for growth, turned back on itself rather than aimed at a higher purpose, becomes malignant and inhuman. The human world has gotten caught up in the sterile and numerical measures of life and, as such, no qualitative success can develop from it.

    On its surface, this may appear to be a strange lesson to learn from the longest day of the year. It feels necessary and relevant. Though we may not consider it, we are still deeply embedded in the ebb and flow of the seasons and the solar year, the movements of nature and its deepest lessons. It still informs our lives though we think we are separate, above it. Looking back to the shortest day, looking ahead to the dwindling light of fall and winter, we find ourselves on the precipice, bathed in light and potential. We take the time and the growth for granted, but we do not have to.

    Meditations and Practice

    Where in your life have you done well quantitatively? Net worth, athletic achievements, awards and accolades, number of projects completed? Now, what measures of qualitative success can you find? Which seem the most important to you and which would you like to cultivate over the next year, from this longest day to the next? How would you like to feel in the next year and what would you like your life, relationships, and work to look like?

    Practice the balance between quantity and quality. Try to make the same or more money (quantity) doing more meaningful work (quality). Try to spend more time (quantity) pursuing goals of connection, awareness, and authenticity (quality). Incorporate more projects or activities in your life which do not have a clear return or measure and see what qualities you can find in them or in yourself which you had not experienced before.

    Thanks for reading!

  • June in our Garden

    What’s Happening in the Garden?

    There are so many things happening in our garden in June. It is hard to believe the year is nearly half over. In the late winter and early spring, you think things are taking forever and then June hits and the garden explodes, the days are as long as they’ll get, and you can hardly keep track of all that is happening. I wanted to keep a record of where we are in the garden’s journey and encourage you all to take a closer look at your own gardens and the visitors that come and go throughout the season!

    Right now, in the middle of June, we have a few different flowers ready to pop and a handful that have already started blooming. Our salvia comes back year after year without much worry or fuss. In fact, our neighbor tried to replace a beautiful patch of perennials with a sterile rock garden and a few sad looking rose bushes and the old salvia came back with a vengeance. While I have nothing in particular against rock gardens or roses, it was nice to see the old natural garden return for one last victorious flush of purple flowers. The bees love these — as my picture shows! Honeybees are usually one of the first visitors to the garden and salvia is there waiting for them starting early.

    Next, we have had several bunches of German chamomile crop up from one seeding several years ago. They are tremendously hardy and self-seed better than other chamomile varieties we have grown. I always appreciate volunteer plants and try my best to protect them and keep them going until they get strong enough to do their own thing. These are usually the plants that end up doing the best in our garden each year.

    As a bonus, some lovely ladybugs decided to make our garden their home this year and laid some eggs in our chamomile. We got to see them hatch and the little black larvae crawled all over the garden for a few days. Now they are in chrysalis and soon our garden will be filled with ladybugs (we hope). We think the presence of aphids on our Sedum Autumn Joy may have attracted them.

    Then we have our Black-Eyed Susans and our Purple Coneflower (Echinacea) which have returned from last year’s garden, even with the devastatingly dry winter we have had this past year. It just goes to show how resilient and robust these native wildflowers are and what an integral part of any low-effort garden they can be. They have not bloomed yet but the flowers have formed and are just about to open any day now. I cannot wait to see what kind of visitors these flowers bring to the garden. They often attract pollinators of many different types, but more on that later.

    In addition to these beauties, we have also had a couple star players return in spite of my almost having killed them (several times). We tried to transplant a few Yarrow plants into our container garden last year and then proceeded to not water them for six months. There was also so little rain or snow this winter, I thought they were dead for sure. Then they came sprouting up with the first wet days of April and May and now they are just about to start blooming. Keep hope alive!

    There were also a few sprouts coming up in April that I misidentified as Milkweed but which turned out to be Goldenrod. This was an absolute shock and joy to discover because I must have done everything I could to kill them last season. I transplanted them late and they shriveled up and died where I planted them — their little brown twig bodies reminded me of my failure each day I passed them. Then, this spring when I thought they were Milkweed, I tried to transplant them into a larger container and they soon looked quite sad on our first few hot days in May. Now they are continuing to surprise me and prove their resilience, as they have taken off and look like they are going to be fascinating plants to watch. I have never grown them myself but I am excited to see them. Goldenrod are known to be host plants for a huge variety of insects and wildlife so I will keep my eye on these superstars!

    Goldenrod is on the left, Yarrow in the middle, and our Milkweed plants are on the right in this gallery above. Milkweed is known as the sole host plant and food source of the monarch butterfly. I would not hold out hope that a monarch would use our milkweed as their home but that would be high up on my wish list for garden visitors.

    Then we have a few of my favorite flowers that I love to see come up each year. They are known to be aggressive self-seeders, and are probably deemed a weed by most people, but I love the Prairie Sunflower. So many insects come to our garden just for these sunflowers and in the later summer I have even seen Goldfinches come to perch on them and feast on their seedheads. It is a lovely sight to behold at the end of the garden season and really connects you to the cycle of the year and the beginning of autumn.

    We are also trying Marigold, Nasturtium, Calendula, and native Purple Clover (not a true clover, I believe). These will be beautiful summer and autumn blossoms if the grasshoppers don’t get to them first. I am looking forward to a long season of growing!

    I thought I would include in this post a “Garden’s Most Wanted” list as a way to track the garden visitors we get this year. It’s a fun way to stay involved in your garden throughout the year and a reminder that we are part of nature and can make welcoming homes for all sorts of critters without trying very hard. If you’d like to, make your own wish list for garden critters and see what you can find throughout the season — this also makes an enjoyable activity for kids and gets them outside in the dirt. Think of it as a nature-themed scavenger hunt.

    GARDEN VISITORS (no particular order)

    Monarch Butterfly

    Toad or Frog

    Bumble Bees

    Praying Mantis

    Goldfinch bird

    Ladybug (check!)

    Lacewing

    Dragonflies/Damsel Flies

    Yellow Garden Spider

    Orb Weaver Spider

    I’ll leave this list at 10 for now and see how many we can spot in the next few months. Of course I will update with pictures if I spot any and this list is not definitive so I am sure there will be many more entries to make that I am not even thinking of right now. I hope you’ll join me in this fun garden activity and share whatever you find with me.

    Thanks for reading!

  • Masanobu Fukuoka

    Masanobu Fukuoka

    Spotlight on Goodwork

    One of the giants of the “Natural Farming” movement, as well as a proponent of a multitude of valuable nature-based ideas and philosophies, Masanobu Fukuoka embodies several elements which are common to the goodwork archetype.

    His dedication to his craft had him traveling the world, helping others implement his ideas, putting his philosophy down in writing, and working on his own farm until the ripe old age of 95. His ideas went so far beyond farming as to be considered a holistic view of the world – one in which humans would be developed in their capacity just as the natural systems Masanobu worked with, and not seen as inherently destructive or irrevocably flawed. Masanobu’s contributions are celebrated worldwide and I would like to shed a light on them today, as part of the continuing series of examples of goodwork.

    Born in Japan in 1913, Masanobu Fukuoka became educated in agricultural sciences, working in research in plant pathology. After a disillusionment with modern agricultural practices, he returned to his family farm to practice and experiment with new techniques in natural farming. His farm included citrus orchards as well as rice and barley. Unlike other farms in the area, the fields were not flooded for rice production. This was unusual at the time but Masanobu maintained that his no-till methods, paired with crop rotation and native biodiversity prevented the need for tilling, herbicide and pesticide usage, or even flooding the rice fields.

    In 1975, he published his most widely known book, “The One-Straw Revolution” – a book I would recommend to anyone interested in the ideas of natural farming or nature conservation efforts. It is a mixture of how-to guides, spiritual meditation, and philosophical musing over the relationship between human effort and natural ecosystems. There is a tone of hopeful endurance as well as a melancholic exasperation with the state of the world, and even the human spirit. This book provides much fodder for thinking on the continued integration of human and natural systems.

    After his book became popular, around 1979, Fukuoka travelled to assist in the work of returning productive as well as natural areas to equilibrium. This work included planting efforts as well as a series of lectures given on the benefits of his methods. He travelled to the U.S., Europe, Somalia, Ethiopia, Thailand, Tanzania, the Philippines, Greece, and China to mention only a few areas he touched.

    I find a lot of valuable ideas and inspiration in Masanobu’s work and efforts and I continually return to him as a person of intrigue and emulation. I like to imagine carrying the spirit of his work forward, and to embody his philosophy of nature in all aspects of my own life and work. I would love to work in a purposeful manner up to the age of 95, spreading seeds and inspiring people to return to balance. Included in this article are just a few meditations on the ideas Masanobu frequently discussed.

    The Integration of Humans and Nature

    “The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.”

    This is an idea that has intrigued me for several years. It seems that every animal in nature finds a home, a niche, and a way of being that is intertwined with all the systems of their surroundings. Yet we have so many degrees of separation from natural systems in our modern age. Our homes, our technology, our way of life is at odds with other organisms, ecosystems, and processes that we often find it necessary to completely separate the two ideas. There is ‘our world’ and then, when we find it necessary or interesting, we ‘return’ to nature.

    Masanobu Fukuoka’s philosophy entailed people becoming “natural people” again. That is to say, aligning their desires and behavior with natural ways of life. Natural farming, and the cultivation of nature, would not be possible unless people became natural people. As long as people viewed themselves as separate from nature, their behavior would lead them down the path of opposition and conflict with nature.

    This separation becomes strikingly apparent when observed through the lens of modern agriculture. In this system, we are dealing in the cultivation of natural organisms – crops, livestock – but we have also gone to great lengths to separate the organism from everything else.

    In a natural landscape, each organism is interconnected with every other organism in their ecosystem. Their inputs are someone else’s outputs; their outputs are someone else’s inputs. But in modern agricultural practices, a pig is not even a pig, it is a unit of output, and it is subsequently separated from any other organism through a system of constraints – fences, concrete, confinement houses.

    Repeat this for cows, chickens, even crops. No other organism is welcome in the field of a monoculture, and I doubt they’d be met with anything other than hostility if they popped up. To the monoculture, any other plant is considered a weed.

    This philosophy leads me to wonder what it would look like if humans were completely integrated into their natural setting like other animals. We would make our homes in our niche, part of nature and contributing to nature. We would find or cultivate our food as part of nature and contributing to nature.

    What advantages and disadvantages would this bring? Would it even be possible? Is this an all-or-nothing approach or could we still have technological intervention for disease and injury, some semblance of comfort? Is natural living necessarily hard scrabble living? Is there something in us that makes us act at odds with natural systems, and what type of spiritual evolution would have to take place to reconcile ourselves to the natural world? These are the questions that Masanobu’s work helps to explore; not always to answer, but to explore.

    The Do-Nothing Philosophy

    “There is no one so great as the one who does not try to accomplish anything.”

    Fukuoka’s philosophy was called shizen nōhō. Occasionally, it is translated as ‘Do-Nothing’ farming but this is partially a misnomer, in my opinion. More accurately, it could be called ‘Do Nothing Unnecessary’ farming, as there is still plenty to do in this philosophy.

    Fukuoka observed that in modern agricultural practices, people intervened in natural processes when they felt they noticed some inefficiency or disorder. This initial intervention then caused other things to take effect, which required another intervention. Each intervention caused another side effect which was not planned and which required more work, technology, and intervention to correct it. The process seemingly had no end.

    When Fukuoka began to practice his natural farming methods, he would often respond to issues by asking himself where he could stop doing something. By cutting back on interventions in natural processes, he found he could make less unnecessary work for himself and let nature accomplish the same ends using its own processes, its own effort. The question of what not to do would, in theory, lead to a final practice where nothing unnecessary is done and the farmer has become a ‘natural person’ whose existence is in harmony with nature’s process.

    Let’s take modern agriculture as an example once again. The soil is treated like any other part of this ongoing project – sterilized, standardized, stripped of its life and structure through pesticides, herbicides, and tilling. Then it is desperately tended to via systems of watering and fertilizing. This is a strange setup which seems to contradict its own ends and which makes more work than is necessary. First, the natural processes are minimized, interrupted, or halted entirely because they appear to be inconvenient or counterproductive, then they are mimicked by great interventions of machinery and technology.

    I think Fukuoka would ask, “Wouldn’t it be better not to intervene in the first place, and save yourself the work of all these later measures?” Instead of plowing and tilling, robbing the soil of its structure and ability to retain water, and then going back later to irrigate and manage watering systems, why not forego the plowing and the tilling in the first place?

    Biodiversity and Balance

    “The only sensible approach to disease and insect control, I think, is to grow sturdy crops in a healthy environment.”

    The way to begin handing these tasks back to nature was, according to Fukuoka, through biodiversity and finding balance. Nature regulates itself through biodiversity, with different populations of organisms growing and shrinking in relation to hundreds and thousands of others. It is not about ‘achieving’ a state of perfect balance but about allowing processes to work themselves out to find their own stasis. Water will find its own level through the process of waves, movement; nature’s movement is the same.

    One of Fukuoka’s initial efforts to return his farm to natural balance was to sow different varieties of seeds and to begin growing many different varieties of crops. When there is a single crop, all in one location, the pests that use this plant as a host find themselves in heaven. But if you begin to separate these plants with other plants, suddenly that same pest does not have the same chance to spread. This is what is meant when we say that nature regulates itself through biodiversity. The greater the mixture of plants and animals, the less likely it will be that explosions of pests and disease will occur.

    Economics – Advantages and Disadvantages

    The main criticism that is put at the feet of natural farming is that it may not be as economically viable as modern agriculture. It either does not have the same potential for output or it is not cost effective. When we look at it through the eyes of mechanized systems and economies of scale, this is correct. A confinement chicken house is economically successful because all its chickens are grown to be more or less identical – all the better for standardized machinery to process them. And each operation limits itself to one product, as having multiple products increases the cost of processing, requiring different types of machinery and technology for different outputs. You cannot pick strawberries with the same mechanisms with which you pick corn, for example.

    But the smallholding does not work in the same way that the large operation works, economically speaking. Its advantages are different than the advantages of a large operation. This is normal. As long as the smallholding does not try to act like a large operation, it can still be successful. By being exactly what it is and capitalizing on its unique advantages, it can still be economically viable.

    In this example, the smallholding may not produce as much as the large operation but it also does not have the same machinery costs and overhead costs typical of a large operation. Also, if the smallholding focuses on custom work or retail level sales direct-to-customer, they can increase the amount they get for their products. If they would attempt to achieve the same economies of scale as the large producer, they would take on far too many costs to make their product worthwhile. But keeping costs low and fostering relationships directly with their buyers, they can move in an economically viable way.

    I think this method applies to work of other types as well, especially craftwork. Those who do not match pure output still have much quality and value to offer. Often, that is their advantage: they still offer something human, and of high quality, that the large producers cannot mimic in their quest for standardization.

    Joel Salatin’s book, “You Can Farm” is also helpful in expounding on this idea. He recommends having a main enterprise and cultivating several side enterprises that are complementary in nature. (This also is in line with the biodiversity idea, applying it even to income streams.)

    Meaningful Work and Connection

    This brings me to the last lesson, one of connection and humanity. All too often, people decry their work as something that takes them away from life, away from meaningful experience, and provides only an uncomfortable alienation from themselves and from others. In reading about Masanobu Fukuoka’s life and contributions to his field (pun intended), you get the idea that genuine connection and meaningful work are massive forces that still live in us, just under the surface. This man travelled the world because people wanted to meet with him, learn his ways, and connect with him on a personal level over their shared interest and passion.

    There will be more posts in the future about the relationship between economics and ecology, as well as work in general, because I find it an interesting path full of questions. But at the very least, we should be able to recognize that we do not have to choose between a good income or meaningful work. We can have both. There is still opportunity to engage in meaningful work in such a way that we can provide massive value to others and receive value through income in our own lives.

    If Fukuoka’s example has taught us anything, it is that perhaps we have to do a lot less than we think we do in order to attain this goal. Whether your work is with plants or people, crafts or commodities, we can always take a closer look to understand how our decisions and behaviors can better align with nature. Through our work, we can transform ourselves and our situations so that we can become better, more thoughtful, more productive, less harmful. We can become natural people.

    For anyone interested in learning more about Masanobu Fukuoka and his natural farming outlook, I would highly recommend reading “The One-Straw Revolution” or watching interviews and videos available about Fukuoka and his longtime student, Larry Korn. Listening to them and reading their work inspires and educates.

    Meditations and Musings

    Is there some part of your work you could stop doing? Are there systems or interventions in place that you could get rid of to get to a more efficient and natural work? What do you do that could be considered unnecessary?

    What could you do to become a more ‘natural’ person? What role does your work play in developing yourself as a person, physically, spiritually, or mentally? What would your life look like if you made this natural work a part of your daily practice?

    Where could you cultivate diversity in your life to make yourself or your income more resilient, more productive, or more natural? What could you incorporate into your life that would complement your main goals, and help you in your effort?

  • Making the Leap

    Making the Leap

    Finding and pursuing your goodwork

    Many people will begin the journey of their life’s work doing something entirely irrelevant to their nature, their goals, and perhaps even their character. I started work at seventeen at my local movie theater, working the concessions counter part-time on evenings and weekends. From what I can recall, I was paid a low wage to get berated by the general public because they made the mistake of ordering movie theater nachos and hotdogs. This was my first encounter with work. And it was not great. It was also where I grew my appreciation for employees in the service industry, a place where brave hearts fear to tread.

    Throughout my twenties, I worked a handful of odd jobs. I traveled both Europe and the U.S. working on small farms in exchange for room and board. I worked in a bookstore, as a house painter, as a plumber. I worked one shift as an overnight shelf stocker at my local grocery store before deciding it wasn’t for me. In each job, I felt keenly that I did not belong. Each time I tried something that did not work out, I felt a lot like I was being rejected by the world, like I would never belong anywhere. There was always going to be this friction or resistance when I wanted to pursue some aim.

    What’s worse, I looked around and some people were actually passionate about their work. They didn’t drag themselves to their jobs, they didn’t complain about the ins and outs of their profession. They liked to work. And it wasn’t an isolated incident! You could see people working in restaurants, gyms, bookstores, offices, landscaping companies, and they actually wanted to be there. You could see it right off, it was something in their eyes.

    I wanted to have what they had, I wanted to do something that I felt connected to, that I could be engaged in. I wanted to make something that had utility, that provided value. I wanted to make something that could provide joy, guidance, and beauty.

    In my mid-twenties, I got a job in assembly manufacturing, gluing one part to another part and screwing wires into circuit boards. It wasn’t what I wanted but it was something. It was in this period of my life that I started to change how things were going to be. I had changed my attitude toward my path. I wasn’t going to quit at the first chance and I wasn’t going to let the negative aspects dissuade me from continuing on.

    As I was soldering circuits at work one day, I had my first mental glimpse into the future that I wanted to create. Since then, I have realized the various pitfalls common to this process and I have discovered some practices in mental outlook that have helped along the way.

    This, by no means, is to suggest I have attained success and prestige in the field of my goodwork but merely that I have found the path and have begun to understand the process. I hope the same for others. When travelers meet, they may talk about the places they have been and the experiences they have had there. They say things like, “Did you ever make it to Edinburgh? Me too, there was a little pub there I always liked.” And then maybe, “Oh yes, we went in late summer and the weather was nice but I returned some years later in March and it was much colder than I would have liked. But all the lines were short and the castles empty for us to enjoy alone.” That’s something along the lines of what I aim for here. Travelers meeting and exchanging notes.

    EFFICIENCY v. EFFECTIVENESS

    One of the first lessons you learn in any pursuit is that things do not go smoothly in the beginning. The beginning of any endeavor has us accruing endless costs and expenses and the few wins here and there can spur us on but certainly do not begin to cover costs, let alone provide for growth.

    When I began my various gardening projects, I wanted things to go smoothly and efficiently. Digging garden beds in the sun feels anything but smooth or efficient. But I would remember that the point of digging the beds was not to be efficient, as it only had to happen that one time. The point of these large time and labor costs was to be effective. To get it done and get the plants in the ground. So, it took several more afternoons than I had planned to get the soil prepared, and it took more than one trip to the hardware store for different tools and materials. The costs kept mounting and it destroyed my expectations of a smooth and inexpensive project. It didn’t matter. When the project was done, the garden was ready for the planting and I would never have to dig the beds out again.

    The same is true for other pursuits. School, for example, is not an efficient process but an effective one. It is more time consuming and more expensive than you plan on but the point is not to get to the end as quickly and efficiently as possible but to put the time and study in that is required for you to get your degree. Going through the effort to set up the assembly line takes the majority of the time and energy and then when it is running smoothly you can put your mind toward efficiency and productivity. You will not make a ton of money on your first few clients, or on your first transactions with a new client, because creating the new relationship is about effectiveness, not efficiency.

    Advice for this phase of your goodwork involves mostly mental rewiring. Because this phase does not involve the gratification of rewards but the collection of costs, it can be discouraging and frustrating. Try to adopt an attitude towards these challenges that reinforces your path – they are like milemarkers showing you the way. They may test your commitment, make you question your abilities, but they tell you that you are on the right path toward achievement.

    Try to separate your activities into projects and production. Projects are your high cost endeavors with no return in the short run. Production is highly rewarding and more efficient. If you make the mistake of thinking your project will be as efficient as your production, you may become unnecessarily discouraged and frustrated. Instead, take it for what it is. Keep the faith that this project will eventually lead to an increased capacity for whatever your goodwork is, and do the work with that in mind. High expectations and delusions of grandeur will burden your mind and your project and may turn into procrastination, overwhelm, and maybe even quitting.

    LOGORRHEA, THE ROLE OF PLANNING and ORDER

    Logorrhea is defined as the excessive use of words. The way I use it here, I am also including other logical forms like plans, dreams, expression, calculations, thoughts, and discourse. It is quite common that people will get trapped in a state of logorrhea when they go about beginning a project or task. They talk about doing it, they fantasize about it or the rewards they will get from it, they will read about it and watch videos about it, they will write out detailed plans and to-do lists about it, they will crunch the numbers about it. Going even further, they will chastise themselves for not doing it sooner or not doing it as good as someone else. They will hate the obstacles and focus their energy on them rather than their aim. They will look for recognition and accolades, they will search for reasons, answers, and reassurance. They will imagine the perfect circumstances, look for them, wait for them. But all of these things have one thing in common: none of them will replace actually doing the thing.

    To avoid this pitfall, try to keep your planning, accounting, and advertising in balance with actually doing the work, making the product, and pursuing action that brings substance. These planning activities should be limited to a small percentage of your time and the rest of your time should be used in working the plan and bringing it to fruition. There is always going to be a need for thorough plans and accurate accounting but the key is not to be carried away by the allure of purely abstract thought. You think, “Maybe if I change this around a little bit, I can make a few extra dollars per unit and then if I increase my sales by about ten percent a year it will compound to this amount after ten years and if I just capture one percent more of the business in the market I can make this much more money…” And soon enough you’ve done nothing but crunch numbers about goods and services that do not exist. You can’t eat a garden plan, so be sure to plant those tomatoes!

    Do not complain, do not explain. It is my impression that people engaged in work waste precious time and energy in two key areas – complaining about the work and explaining themselves. There is a time and place for the expression of these two things. If something is bringing about far too many complaints, maybe it is time to sit back and consider if there is a better approach. And explaining yourself to others will always be necessary in this world of navigating other people, until we become telepathic. But watch carefully that you do not give in to endless complaining that has no ideas for betterment – this is whining. And make sure you are not spending excessive time and energy explaining yourself to others, as this may build the habit of seeking validation from others rather than satisfaction in the results of your work.

    MAKING THE TRANSITION

    “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” – Theodore Roosevelt

    This cannot really be called advice but is actually an immutable law of nature. We have to focus on what we can do since the alternative is what we cannot do. We have to use what we have since it is impossible to use what we do not have. And while we may end up in different places and conditions throughout our journeys, we must recognize in each moment where we are in reality in order to make real progress. The grass is greener where you water it.

    People start their journeys toward their most meaningful work from all different backgrounds and positions. Some find a way to make it happen with relatively little education or support, these are entrepreneurs and business owners. Other lines of work like medicine or teaching require more educational inputs and involve a long process of improvement that is not as open to ‘overnight success’. I certainly don’t want to get surgery from someone who did not go to medical school and is just hustling for love of the game.

    Whether the journey to your work is long or short, it is common to start from a place that is far divorced from the path you’d like to be on. Personally, I have been working in assembly for several years now and am actively engaged in changing that path. I am not sure what that will look like over the next few years but I know I will continue to work to get closer to doing something I care about, which helps others, and in which I can become a true master.

    Patience is a difficult concept to grasp at times. The moment you think you have achieved patience, you start looking around for your reward… oops! That’s the point of patience! Keep going. There will never be a moment when you outgrow the need for patience. There is no one-size-fits-all answer to how long your journey will last but let’s just say, for the sake of ease, that it will last you the rest of your life. While you are on the way, make sure you are becoming the type of person you would like to be, someone you can be proud of. The daily work does a little work on us, too, reforming us like clay over months and years.

    Begin your journey where you are, have the humility to recognize and respect your starting point. It is easy to get used to the movie montage transformation, the zero-to-hero training sequence, the overhaul makeover, and the end credits rolling at the perfectly written conclusion. Our lives are not like that. They are littered with beginnings and endings of many different phases, interests, and personalities. This could be said to be the reality of goodwork. There is no end to goodwork because there is no moment in your life in which you would ever be content to live without connection, value, or creativity.

    CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

    The silver lining to the fact that you must start where you are is that you can also improve much faster than you think you can. As long as you are continuing to be honest with yourself about your limits, your resources, and your starting point, you can begin to make small gains in skills and resources that will compound over time.

    A pitfall to avoid: assuming that your progress will always look the same as it does now, when you are beginning your pursuit. If it takes someone six months to save one thousand dollars, they despair that it will take them decades to get to where they want to be. But they do not account for the process of continuous improvement that they will undergo as they keep to their journey. In this example, they may begin to earn more as a result of a job change, they may find unnecessary expenses to cut from their budget, and the money they have saved begins to earn interest. They thought it would take them several decades to get to their goal but it ends up happening at an accelerated rate.

    The prerequisite for continuous improvement is to commit to life and engage with the work. If you are constantly looking outside of yourself for happiness and fulfillment, you forfeit the ability to create your own. You will not be able to improve on something you refuse to work with, so you must be dedicated to this practice.

    It may be discouraging to begin with little gains here and there. Certainly, these first improvements will seem unremarkable or insignificant. You may even feel embarrassed that things are going so slow, or that you are not making the leaps and bounds you envisioned for yourself. Consistency above all else will win you continuous improvement.

    Conclusion

    So, you start where you are. It is anything but perfect. The goals you wish to attain are specks in the distance. The point is to begin. Not to begin perfectly, not to fulfill your potential all at once, but just to get started. This is one of those pesky lessons you have to keep learning all your life. To be honest, I am not good at it. I have always wanted to be the prodigy, the natural, the chosen one. I want to pick things up quickly and without effort. That is a habit we have to work on, to learn that effort and work are glorious things to undertake and not an inconvenience from which we should escape.

    Thank you for reading!

  • Friends of the Garden

    Bees

    In beginning a ‘Friends of the Garden’ series of posts, I would like to shed light on various plants and animals that bring tremendous benefit to not only our gardens but to nature in general. These posts will include a small portrait of this friend of the garden, as well as ways to encourage this friend and make a niche for them to thrive. I enjoy watching out for all these different forms of life and how they might come to appear in the garden; it is like collecting, without disturbing anything or catching anything. At the end of the season, I get to look back at all the different forms of life I had invited into my world. Some of these friends are having a hard time, so creating corners of the world that are friendly to them is likewise important and I hope to inspire some of that with these short posts. First, the bees.

    Solitary bees

    Not all bees are social in nature, such as the honeybees who form intricate hives and live in colonies. Some bees, known as solitary bees, make their nests in the cracks and crevices of logs, in sand or soil burrows, or even among cavities of hollow reeds. They are still excellent pollinators and should be encouraged by a bee-friendly garden of flowering native perennials. Coneflowers are an excellent choice for these gardens as they provide both food and shelter. Examples of solitary bees include: the mason bee, the leafcutter bee, the metallic bee, miner bees, and squash bees.

    Bumblers

    Bumblebees come in many varieties and I am always glad to see them hanging around our garden. Something about their graceful clumsiness, the way they bend the whole stem down when landing on a flower brings me immense joy. Bumblebee types include: the American bumblebee, the red-belted bumblebee, and the yellow-banded bumblebee. There are several varieties of bumblebee that were once prolific in the U.S. but which are now in trouble due to pesticide use and habitat disruption. Bumblebees do have a queen and a colony, though they are sometimes located in the ground rather than up in the trees, as a honeybee hive typically is.

    Honeybees

    The honeybee is a great bee for both pollination and the economically attractive habit of making honey. Beekeeping is a wonderful hobby, perhaps even a wonderful enterprise if you are so inclined, and can teach you more about the wonders of nature. But this post is not really about the honeybee or honey production, it is more about encouraging a huge range of native bee populations just for the fun of it! We may return to the traditional honeybee work in another post.

    Photo by Alexas Fotos on Pexels.com

    How to Create their Niche

    Let’s start low and go from there. Since many solitary bees and bumblebees make their home in or on the ground, it would be wise to provide these bees ample room to set up shop. Providing sandy soils, muddy areas, or hollow reeds will give the bees a place to make their home right in your garden. Allow your garden to ‘rest’ by leaving accumulated leafy material and twigs on the ground. This provides a refuge for all sorts of pollinating, beneficial insects to overwinter. Setting out shallow trays of water, with pebbles in the water for the bees to land on, will also encourage them.

    Photo by Guzel Sadykova on Pexels.com

    Avoid using pesticides or chemical fertilizers in your garden. You may think the pesticides only ‘target’ the insects you do not want but these chemicals can have negative impacts on beneficial insects as well. And since their homes are made in or near the soil, treating the soil with strong chemical fertilizers may also disrupt their life cycles and make for a poor habitat. As always, do your due diligence before applying chemical anything to your garden so you can be aware of possible negative side effects, or just to make sure you are applying it correctly. Improper application of even a mild chemical can create issues.

    Next, what to grow in your garden to attract the bees. I am a proponent of any flowering native perennial. If it is native, there is a chance it will provide a home for some type of native insect, even if it is not a honeybee. Since it is perennial, you won’t have to plant it every year and each year will bring a stronger growth. And because it flowers, it will provide food for birds and insects as well as beauty for your garden. It does not have to be only native plants, either.

    Photo by Guzel Sadykova on Pexels.com
    Photo by Joseph Lim on Pexels.com

    Most websites on bee information recommend asters, echinacea (coneflower), and daisies. Black-eyed Susans and sunflowers are beautiful and also provide food and shelter for bees. We have planted prairie sunflower in our garden in the past few years as it is resilient and prolific. I have personally had good luck with sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ which does wonderfully in our local climate, as it is drought and cold tolerant, though not a native plant. The bees really seem to love it. The image above is a bumblebee sitting on blooming sedum I believe.

    Photo by Erik Karits on Pexels.com

    I would also personally recommend Anise Hyssop. It smells like warm spices and attracts so many insects to your garden, you won’t know what to do with them all. Other websites also recommend bee balm, borage, goldenrod, clover, salvia, and yarrow. We have had great experiences with borage, salvia, and yarrow as they are all incredibly hardy and return year after year – the borage is an annual but it self-seeds so aggressively that even many community gardens do not allow it to be planted. For our purposes, this is great news, as we want our pollinator-friendly garden to spread throughout the neighborhood!

    Lastly, there are a few things you can create which may encourage these friends of the garden. Drilling holes in logs, providing bundles of reeds and sticks, even simple leaf and stick piles can come to serve the purpose of shelter for a native bee. There are many examples of bee structures you can DIY, plans for these projects litter the internet by the hundreds, and it would be a fun addition to your garden décor. I did not know until recently that bumblebees will use a bee-house (similar to a birdhouse) and that they are relatively simple to make. If you are not so handy to build your own, you can surely order some type of structure or have your crafty neighbor help you make one.

    It may seem ridiculous to drill holes in a log or collect a bundle of sticks together but you must remember how sterile and barren the world has become. The habitable corners of the world for a native bee may be few and far between when it comes to living among us. It may be several miles of paved over road and parking lots, sterilized yards of chemically-treated turf grass, or barren xeriscape rock before they come to a spot where they can set themselves up. Drilling a silly hole in a silly little log could make the difference between them finding absolutely nothing and finding at least a little silly log.

    Whenever you are creating a niche for something in your garden, just think about the main things they would need: water, food, and shelter. Then consider stopping anything which might deter your garden friends, such as chemical fertilizers or herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides. Soon enough your garden will be bursting with life and your garden friends will decide to come pay a visit, maybe even setting up a permanent home in your little corner of the world!

    Conclusion

    This post serves as a superficial primer on bees, a short look into these friends of ours and how to recognize them and bring them around. It is not the definitive source on bees and I would encourage anyone reading to look through a guide that is more thorough in its information. Below are links to several sites I visited while writing this post and which include a wealth of information on bees, their habitat, and encouraging their health. You can even order some bees over the internet if you are so inclined! Happy beekeeping!

    https://kindbeefarms.com/shop

    Yellow-Banded Bumblebee Guide: Habitat, Behavior & Conservation
  • Farmstrong

    Farmstrong

    When personal development is discussed, strength is often one of the first attributes people desire. Perhaps they feel physically weak or ineffectual, bullied by others who are bigger and physically stronger. They want to get stronger so that they never have to feel so small again. Others do not feel emotionally strong, they feel they cannot speak up for themselves or endure the burden of everyday obligations. They ask for strength so they can make it through another day. If we are to carry on, we must ask ourselves what it means to be strong.

    In our age, virtues and values are interpreted through a warped lens. The virtues or values themselves may be good and useful but because they are distorted by misunderstandings, they are turned into useless and harmful versions of themselves. Through this lens, values such as youth, productivity, efficiency, and detachment are championed to a degree that causes many imbalances.

    Our fixation on youth has made us neglect our health and longevity, as we try to continue to live as children in a dreamy and consequence-free lifestyle. Even when people try to mimic longevity, they pursue it in a way that they may achieve eternal youth. An entire industry of health gadgets promises to make us ‘age backwards’ when we could simply age gracefully, try to live long and happy lives. Many feel the push and the urge that they must continue the creativity and productivity of their youth long after middle age, neglecting the natural limits of our capacities or the developed talents we might otherwise put to use such as wisdom and guidance. And our emotions are not contemplated, integrated, or healthfully processed but shut down, ignored, and treated as inconvenient. This often leads to emotional outbursts that are far worse and more ill-conceived than the original emotions. I think of my coworker making fun of the younger generation for crying while he walks around work berating people and having angry meltdowns every other day. So much better!

    I do feel there are values here that are worth embracing, if only we can find a healthy way to do it. Youth is something that can be celebrated, and we could also put more effort towards navigating the loss of youth and the gain of experience, wisdom, and self-control that comes with later ages.

    Longevity is a wonderful goal. I would love to live a long, happy, and productive life. But it would be unwise to try to remain twenty forever, not to mention creepy and unnatural. Instead, we should encourage the development of our personalities and goals as we age, trying to live healthy lives of connection and value, until we can become the wisdom-bearers, the old sages, the elders.

    Finally, it is wise to learn the nature of our emotions so that we do not let them overwhelm and control our behavior. This is the main tenet of Stoicism, and it has nothing to do with shutting down, ignoring, or rejecting emotion but learning about yourself through emotion, accepting them when they arise, and maintaining your sense of what you can control so that your emotions do not control you.

    In any of these cases, strength is asked of us. Physical, emotional, and relational strength is developed throughout life, slowly, sometimes painfully, as we work to become the truest versions of ourselves and bear witness to others becoming themselves too.

    Photo by Elkhan Ganiyev on Pexels.com

    There is a certain archetype that comes to mind when I imagine the abundant, healthy life of a fully formed individual: the farmer. I imagine them as a burly and stout-hearted person, strong grip, calm eyes under a discerning brow. They are quiet, but their intelligence is demonstrated in the deftness of their movements and the skill of their craft. They do their speaking with action rather than words. When they do speak, each word is dense with meaning. Words carry a premium; words are slow and burdensome compared to the act itself. There are years of setbacks and resilience in their eyes, you can count them like rings on a tree. And after every catastrophe, their strong hands pick up their well-worn tools and begin again.

    Physical Health and Longevity

    The nature of the farmer’s work tends to be physical. There are chores enough to keep the farmer occupied as long as they’d like. Often their work can overtake their personal lives. This is where a healthy relationship to one’s work and person calling can come in handy. We want to be profitably and meaningfully employed but losing health and enjoyment from overwork is entirely possible and should be avoided.

    Photo by ahmad dian fitrah jamaluddin on Pexels.com

    Having regular, physical movement throughout the day keeps the body healthy. Many people today have sedentary jobs or professions and do not opt into a regular exercise routine. Those with physical jobs accomplish both the demands of their work and also the demands of the physical body – to move, and keep practiced in movement, for as long as one can.

    One of the primary goals of goodwork is to ‘Stay as strong as you can, as long as you can.’

    Farm chores also tend to include a lot of low-impact movements paired with higher-repetition strength movements and occasionally the high-effort compound movement such as picking up something extremely heavy or lifting something above one’s head. If these movements are done with a mind toward joint care and proper form, they are the building blocks of a healthfully aging body which retains much of its strength and endurance while sedentary bodies tend to wither, break down, and accumulate compounding injuries.

    There is much information available to us now that suggests the importance of exercising our muscles as a practice throughout life in order to improve the condition of our later years. Developing our muscles through vigorous exercise improves four areas that people tend to struggle with as they age.

    First, it will help with balance. Imbalance leads to falls and slips and the injuries from these falls can compound over time to worsen the condition of our lives. The skeletal muscles, their strength and agility, as well as the strength of our core muscles, assist us in keeping balance.

    Secondly, it helps with our hearts and circulatory systems. Many people will have issues with their heart and arteries as a result of sedentary living and diet issues. Regular exercise helps prevent heart disease and arteriosclerosis, the hardening of the arteries over time.

    Third, it helps us keep stronger bones. When the body is sedentary, the bones may become weak and brittle which will lead to breaks. These injuries lead to more sedentary living, in order to give them a chance to heal, but may also affect our mobility and strength forever after. Lifting weights and exercising muscles helps to strengthen our bones and keep them strong even as we age.

    Last but not least, regular exercise helps us keep our minds sharp, improves and maintains cognition. Many people will struggle with routine cognitive issues such as memory degradation and slowed processing time as they age. Some will struggle with more severe cognitive decline such as dementia. Regular exercise can lessen the likelihood that we experience these effects and diseases. These four areas (balance, cardiovascular health, bone density, and cognitive health) are all improved by an active lifestyle integrated with strength movements that prioritize proper form and joint health.

    The kind of physical work I am describing can destroy a person if they are not careful and do not have a mind for their limitations and recovery. There are countless people who have neglected their limits only to injure themselves with recurring stresses, do not pay heed to bodily or mental recovery, and as a result push themselves into a state of decrepitude and decay. A life without boundaries is self-destruction. I have worked with many people, especially in the trades, who have pushed themselves and others beyond their limits and have suffered setbacks and injuries as a result. This kind of behavior inspires negative associations with work and unhealthy relationships with each other, as well as an unhealthy relationship to one’s body.

    Photo by Ebahir on Pexels.com

    Community and Connection

    A farmer’s lifestyle can be said to contain two important relational elements. Those are strong individualism and connected community life. There are many opinions floating around that overemphasize the importance of rugged individualism to the point of isolation. And there are many opinions that disparage individualism to the point of neglecting individual development and expression entirely, preferring to focus on the ideas of community life and collective markers of well-being.

    But what is the community made up of? Individuals. And how can the individual exist without the support and care and connection of the love of their community? You cannot separate the two. If the community is made up of people who refuse to take individual responsibility for their lives, disconnection and chaos ensue. If the community is made up of people who refuse to acknowledge their connection to community members in mutually beneficial relationships, everyone becomes isolated, ineffectual, and hollow.

    Of all the farmstrong people I have met, they have done well to develop both the attribute of their individuality and the deep connection that comes with community-making.

    Photo by Quang Nguyen Vinh on Pexels.com

    Their work is reflective of this. Each farm is unique and specific, it must be worked in a certain way and it is not often that the same methods will apply to many different areas of the land. They must take responsibility for their work, which they do in direct relationship to the land they inhabit. At times it can seem the working farm is isolated or remote, being tucked away into foothills and valleys far from the bustle of the cities and towns, traditionally. But the farmer balances this when they come into town to sell or trade their goods. They must maintain this connection if any of their work is to be meaningful and productive. And often they create a niche on their own land to host visitors, helpers, family, and neighbors.

    I lived and worked on several farms in my early twenties, traveling through Europe and the northern United States. Each farm had deep connection to its community and to the other farmers in their area. On an olive farm in Italy, we hosted a dinner for thirty people working and living on neighboring farms. They each brought their specialty olives, a recipe they each inherited and loved from generations past, and we shared in the moment and the connection of our work together.

    We walked up the hill to town where they were having an autumn harvest festival. The hunters brought wild boar, the farmers brought their food, the locals brought homemade wine. We sang and danced in tents in the town’s parks and we stumbled back to our beds around nightfall. On a goat farm in France, we made cheese and hosted cheese-making classes as well as cheese tasting events. We slept in a hut folded into the treeline, warmed by a little stove at its center.

    Each day was about meeting the current task in a personal, direct way, whether it was collecting the olives or pounding fence posts. It was also about finding connection and harmony within the community we wanted to cultivate.

    Photo by Mark Stebnicki on Pexels.com

    Mental Health

    The nature of the farmer’s outlook tends to be, consciously or unconsciously, practical and persistent. They work with the ground and are, by no coincidence, well-grounded. It is the reality of their work that they must accept unforeseen circumstances and work to overcome them or at the very least to endure them. I think this can be a unique outlook, given these various forces.

    The farmstrong know that they must contend with reality and so their fantasy worlds are tempered by the capacity of their work to bring things out of their imagination. Their continuance in their daily chores and projects suggests a vote of confidence in the future, though they are more than willing to embrace the uncertainty of their lives and profession, with which they are painfully familiar.

    Photo by Makara Eam on Pexels.com

    Experience of the disappointments of life’s endeavors do not embitter them towards honest effort; in fact, honest effort is quite often their guiding light and daily devotional, it imbues all their work with ritual goodness and attention, and the firsthand experience of disappointment cultivates a healthy detachment from the painful images of expectations. ‘Oh, well…’ might be a common refrain of the farmstrong.

    I have often found myself enamored with people of this character, who can so easily have faith in tomorrow that they may content themselves with the honest work of today, this moment. It can be somewhat more common to see the unrelenting plans, schemes, and hollow wishes of those who are resigned from daily life and content themselves with fruitless daydreaming. All dreams and no delivery. I have certainly found myself distracted by endless waves of planning, rather than returning to the humbling act of daily work.

    Photo by Beyza Yalu00e7u0131n on Pexels.com

    I have often thought of the farmer as the Stoic ideal. Not all farmers are like this, of course, but the ideal itself is the absolute picture of resilience, courage, wisdom, and virtue. After getting a taste of life on a working farm, you begin to understand why this would be the place to create that tempered steel of pure stoicism – the chores must be done no matter the weather, no matter the circumstances, no matter the mood. Whether it is freezing winter or pouring rain or gale force winds, the livestock must be fed and watered, the work must continue to get done. Whether it is a little Russian babushka tending to the cows or a goatherd in Greece walking the hills and the fields, there are those whose work has polished them against the difficulty of life and as a result they exude a strength and endurance that is without comparison. They may never set out to fulfill this ideal of virtue, and they may never put a word to paper about it in order to describe their process or their thoughts, and yet they have embodied this philosophy better than the most prominent minds of antiquity.

    A word on Stoicism, a sometimes-misunderstood term. I have occasionally seen Stoicism portrayed as the rejection or suppression of emotion, perhaps an enthusiastic withdrawal from life, or a cold and uncaring posture taken with an attitude of disregard. After reading some of the classic Stoics, such as Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, and Seneca, one may come to know the nuance of this philosophy better and to consider it a great deal more relevant than other systems of thought from ancient history.

    It is not about stifling or repressing emotion but consciously approaching emotion in a way that allows us to contend with it. When we meet with our emotions in a calm and level-headed manner, we can better understand where they come from, what they are trying to express, and how best to integrate them in a way that does not disturb our lives. It is also not about withdrawing from the necessary actions of life but rather focusing on what we can control and engaging in these things with virtue, rather than losing ourselves to the uncertainty and doubt of events and circumstances entirely outside of our influence, which may pull our valuable time and energy away from constructive and useful action. It is about engaging with life and committing to life in a way that we are prepared for setbacks and inconveniences and whatever else fate may send our way.

    Photo by RDNE Stock project on Pexels.com

    One may encounter difficulties but with the right practices they may work through these difficulties without adding a greater burden with their own unhelpful behaviors. Surely, we have all been in a difficult spot before with someone who would not stop complaining, making negative predictions, or refused to work through the issue. This not only doesn’t help the situation but makes it much worse.

    Conclusion

    These attributes do not have to belong to the farmer alone, of course. Anyone of any background can develop these habits and channel these characteristics through their own work and relationships in order to build resilience, strength, and connection into their lives. That is the aim of my sharing these thoughts, and my continuing to write on subjects related to the farmstrong idea in the future.

    I find that there are many misconceptions about strength, stoicism, individuality, and work in general. Useful ideas are co-opted by the irresponsible and the immature every day, so I think it is important to bring these terms back into the expression of usefulness and maturity. I hope to shine light on topics that have been painted with a negative brush and perhaps come away with a more constructive view of things.

    If I could ever express my view on these topics and provide a useful thought to someone in search of answers, I would be delighted with my contribution. I value minding my own business, so I’d like to reiterate that I am not telling anyone how to live but merely discussing the lifestyle and characteristics of interesting people and philosophies.  

    Below I have provided a link on the benefits of strength training, as a reference for the claims I have put forth in this post. I encourage you to read further on the topic, as I am a layman.  

    https://emedicalhub.com/strength-training-for-longevity-why-lifting-weights-is-important-for-aging/

  • Vectors, Niches, and the Art of Placemaking

    Vectors, Niches, and the Art of Placemaking

    If we conjure up the image of a plain, manicured lawn, chances are there is no room for anything else. There are typically no other bugs, animals, or plants that can coexist within a perfectly manicured lawn. Only that one type of grass, that one length of each blade, perhaps even a sign that says to ‘keep off’. In fact, there are concerted efforts to rid the lawn of anything that may inconvenience it or compete with it. Millions of dollars are spent each year on chemicals the average user is entirely ignorant of, being poured out on lawns, driveways, and sidewalks to spare us the sight of the rogue dandelion, to kill the insects, to preserve that uniform mat of green lawn.

    Now, if we conjure up an image of a healthy and abundant garden, we reckon with an entirely different world. In order for it to be abundant and productive, we imagine there to be many different plants, many different insects, and a general happening of all with all, everything mingling together in some complex system we can scarcely understand. The beginner gardener starts out by learning that there are beneficial and harmful insects and they are careful not to be so enthusiastic about killing the one that the other is destroyed in the process. The intermediate gardener learns that there are even certain plants one can cultivate in order to attract the beneficial insects or repel the harmful insects. The advanced gardener knows that if they do their job well in organizing and arranging the garden for its health, then each will care for each and a certain balance will be attained that does not require their constant oversight or intervention.

    The two images I have just described are examples of the difference in creating niches or encouraging ‘vectors’ of abundance. This is similar to the idea of placemaking in designing public spaces. These ideas, arguably, are mainstays of the best practices of goodwork.

    A niche is that crevice, nook, or cranny of the world in which something can find its natural position. In ecological terms, a niche is a condition or environment in which a plant or animal thrives, encouraged to express its true nature. A vector is a directional magnitude that implies transmission, communication, or aim. I think of a niche as a corner of the world and a vector as all the possibilities that can pour out of this little corner.

    A niche is a foothold, from which something can launch into full expression. And placemaking, in this instance related to goodwork and to gardening, is about cultivating many places where a niche could support life and where life could then support vectors of abundance.

    Joel Salatin, a renowned farmer using regenerative agricultural methods, would refer to this practice as “Honoring the pigness of the pig, the cowness of the cow, or the chickenness of the chicken.” Each plant or animal has a nature which it most easily expresses in its particular niche. To honor that plant or animal is to create a niche that allows it to express its true nature.

    Joel Salatin in front of his flock at Polyface Farms.

    The pig is a forager; it roots around with its snout in the dirt for morsels of food. The cow is a grazing ungulate, partial to herd mobbing on a diet of grasses and forbs. A chicken is an omnivorous scavenger, picking and pecking through seeds, grain, insects, and grasses. So, what happens when you constrain the pig, cow, or chicken to a tiny enclosure, with no access to soil or sunshine, feed it a diet far-removed from its natural inclinations, and otherwise expect it to produce abundantly? Well, you get two things, the image of the modern farming method and a slurry of disease, waste mismanagement, and low-quality food. One practice is about creating places, honoring a niche, and being a part of abundance. The other is about wanting abundance, mimicking abundance, but otherwise skipping the work necessary to be a part of its true nature.

    This practice does not concern only natural environments or the components of animals and plants. It also has a great deal to do with how people relate to each other through the physical space they inhabit. Master sushi chef, Jiro Ono, is a great example of a craftsman with an eye for cultivating a place. His restaurant is like a niche in this way, which caters to a specific aim and sensation that he wants to communicate to his guests. It is a small and humble-looking restaurant, with only ten seats at a long bar-top. The lights are warm and low. The sparse design does not feel minimal or bare but sleek, clean, and harmonious. With a smaller seating arrangement, Jiro is free to cater to the guests based on his observations; do they eat with their left or right hand, what size sushi will they eat in a given time in order to keep the pace of the meal. And while the elegant simplicity of his place is felt deeply as graceful and easy, it is in reality built on many hours of disciplined work, attention to detail, and an attitude of mastery that makes Jiro desire to continuously improve his process over the years, even as he continued to work into his 80s, 90s, and now, having turned 100.

    Jiro Ono, in the film ‘Jiro Dreams of Sushi’

    There are also countless ways to make a place or niche for people in one’s daily life. Your own home could be an example of a niche which you form yourself day after day with the habits you keep and the ideals you hold dear. Making a place for yourself can be an art, a practice. You can make it open and welcoming to others as well. Those who come to visit may marvel at some unspeakable quality your home has that feels inviting, warm, and encourages connection. It does not have to be filled to the brim with shiny knickknacks or gadgets, it does not have to be decked out with expensive furnishings and decorations. It merely has to have that perfected quality of a place that is made with intention and a mind for harmony.

    Even something as plain as a conversation can be made into a place for stopping off, a place for resting, a place for an encouraging word or a supportive idea. How desperate people are in their daily lives for some sense of belonging or support that a conversation alone may be memorable enough to last them the year! Think of the last time you received a compliment, how long that impression has lasted. People can make places for each other in easy ways that make the process of routine actions more bearable and even beautiful. Letting someone go ahead of you in line, handing out compliments that come to mind, assisting someone in some dreaded chore. No task is so low that it cannot serve as a matter for our attention.

    A farmer who raises cows does not actually raise the cow but tries to create an environment in which the cow cannot help but grow healthfully. A therapist does not give the patient right conduct, good thoughts, or healing but provides an environment of communication in which all of these things are allowed to develop of their own accord. Feed the birds, the worms, the bees and your garden will feed you with ease.

    There is a subtle and indirect logic to this aspect of work, as opposed to the image of effort, skill, and discipline that is often conjured in the mind when thinking of achievement. There is a place for effort, skill, and discipline; these are indispensable things. But the indirect work of preparing a place may take you further, and with greater ease, than the repetitive and frustrated attempts to create something from willpower alone.

    How to make a place, a niche.

    Begin by organizing your corner of the world. This may sound bland or ineffectual. But you must remember that there are many people who seek to better the world by focusing on the weeds in other people’s gardens. This gets us nowhere. The people who succeed in making a place are those who do what they can, where they are. They plant a row of flowers, a native bush, they forego weed-killer or fertilizers. They help their neighbors rather than trying to save the city. That is oftentimes more heroic. This wisdom is handed down by Marcus Aurelius, a Roman emperor and practicing stoic. He noted how the insects put in order their little corners of the universe and kept the world going by doing the work that was natural to them. Our work may be drudgery sometimes; it may be joyful other times. But it is our work, and we continue to do it because we are helping to put together our corner of the universe.

    Design it with a visitor in mind. When you set out to create a place for something or someone, you must keep them in mind in order to make it inviting. You wouldn’t try to make a place for a mouse the same as you would for a cat. Mice like little crumbs, dark corners, and quiet. Cats like cozy sunbeams, high perches. Cats like mice. We must take into consideration the nature of those we wish to see thrive and go about creating a place that is best for them. The cows like tall pastures of polyculture forage, not dry dirt fields covered in dung. Chickens like to scratch and peck, chase each other a little bit. You learn to fall back in love with observation. The situation you create will invite the most suitable visitors, not necessarily the visitors you want. So, you must become adept at observing what your most desired visitors want, dream of, cherish, are fearful of.

    Be comfortable with silence. Silence in all its forms can create tension. Unanswered questions, untaken paths, an averted gaze. But constant noise and effort do not make the place, they simply make it uninhabitable. When you first make a niche, it may go unanswered for some time. You must keep the practice of cultivating this niche until your visitors find it. Practice silence and people will begin to tell you about themselves. The bees will come to the garden when the wind stops blowing. The water clears, the haze lifts, the situation becomes clear. Practice silence enough and you may even hear yourself again. Here’s a lesson from the worms: do your work in quiet obscurity and you will reform the earth.

    Accept it, Expect more from it. It is okay that things are the way they are right now. It is also okay that you want to make them better. Both of these things can be negotiated in time and patience. If you do not accept how things are right now, you will never be able to function in your work. If a sculptor did not accept the hardness of the stone for what it was, they would never be able to work with it. Part of accepting something is accepting that it may be disappointing, or not all that it could be. It is a beautiful thing that someone can take a neglected or disordered thing and make it into a productive or useful thing. That is why we can accept something and also expect more from it.

    Optimize the Unremarkable. We are drawn to herculean efforts, dramatic transformations, and fast turnaround times. When we do not get big returns, we are inclined to feel disappointed. This can also be called the lesson of compound interest. Small, incremental changes over time compound to create great change while short bursts of effort can leave us empty and fatigued. Kaizen, or continuous improvement, is a business term stemming from Japanese industries following World War Two, and it can be dissected as an entire philosophy unto itself. More on that later. But the point is to abandon the monumental task and focus on optimizing the unremarkable tasks. Of work, of life. How much better off would we be if we optimized our daily routine to get the best sleep we could? And the gardener who optimizes their soil health will find themselves far better off than those who optimize for straight rows.

    Conclusion

    There are many examples of places we can make for each other. The morning routine, the lunch date, the afternoon walk. The kitchen, the living room, the garden. The restaurant, the gym, the office. Each place should be regarded as something to be honored and treasured, as part of our goodwork and part of our daily lives. We can make it clean, make it easy to work in, make it pleasurable to share with each other. When you are finished exercising at the gym, you clean off the equipment and on some level you can say ‘thank you’ to that space for helping to make you stronger. When you are done with your dinner, you can thank your server and stack your plates neatly to be bussed. The clear delineations of ‘jobs’ don’t really matter here as much as the process of our goodwork, which belongs to the spaces we inhabit and not necessarily to specific people. Creating a place, cultivating a niche for yourself or for others, is about deciding what kind of world you want to live in. Would you like to live in a cleaner world, in a nicer world, in a more abundant world, in a more efficient world, in a pleasurable world? Good, me too. And we can do that by being clean, being nice, cultivating abundance, and bringing pleasure to people’s lives. In any manner of way, we can choose to do this each day.

  • Leonardo Da Vinci

    Leonardo Da Vinci

    Spotlight on Goodwork

    I have recently had the pleasure of exploring the life, work, and creative mind of Leonardo Da Vinci, mainly through Walter Isaacson’s biography which I highly recommend and also through Leonardo’s collected writings from his notebooks. Originally, I had wanted to know more about Leonardo because of a vague attraction to the idea of a natural genius, the Renaissance man, as well as the mystery that surrounded him as a figure. Before reading into him, I only knew of a handful of his most famous artworks and very little of his actual life. I will not attempt to reproduce his biography here, though I recommend to anyone who is interested to research him more at your convenience. What I will attempt to put down here is a list of lessons I had gleaned from the man and his life while reading about his endeavors, his beliefs, and his character. I feel these lessons relevant to goodwork and to daily life in general.

    Lesson One – genius is comprised of boundless curiosity.

    Leonardo da Vinci’s Recto The skeleton.

    More:

    Original public domain image from Wikimedia Commons

    Leonardo was born as an illegitimate son to a prominent notary. Because his father did not recognize him as legitimate, he was not expected to follow him in his trade as a notary. This was quite fortunate, as it gave Leonardo the freedom to indulge in many other interests and paths throughout his life. Perhaps beginning in this way, without a prescribed path, forced him to consider every path as possible. As a young man he explored all of these possibilities with an insatiable curiosity, always attracted to questions of natural science and never satisfied with routine information.

    A famously quoted entry in one of his to-do lists was, “Describe the tongue of a woodpecker.” This gives us some insight into the level of detail with which he viewed the mundane, the things which are often taken for granted. Leonardo obsessively studied the nature of water to the point of hyperfixation. His notebook is filled with elaborate drawings of water in various states of motion and he attempted to learn more about the mechanics of water over the course of his life, pursuing many inquiries into the budding science of hydraulics. Einstein, similarly, said that his genius was due mostly to the fact that he “stayed with problems longer.” Not content with initial conclusions or the dismissive attitude of convention, the very curious explore details as far as they will lead them – in Einstein’s case it led him into the subatomic realm. In Leonardo’s case, it led him into a deep exploration of the natural world. They often went further than others in an attempt to understand and as a result they could not easily be understood by others. But in each case, Einstein’s as well as Leonardo’s, it was a great deal owing to curiosity that their genius was so developed and so famous.

    Lesson Two – the desire to be useful.

    Leonardo wrote in his journal, “The power of my limbs will fail me before the power of being useful.” Such a simple sounding and humble desire, to continue to be of use as long as one can. I would hardly have expected this to come from a genius of the Renaissance, who I had assumed would be intellectual and concerned with theory, hypotheticals, and fantastical daydreaming. And of course, Leonard was well versed in those things. But he also had this drive to bring his creative ideas into reality in order to make things better, even by small degrees.

    An entertainer and aspiring engineer, he wanted to bring his intense curiosity and exploration of the natural world back into the world of enjoyment, usefulness, entertainment, and fundamental humanity. This desire is actually one of the main tenets of goodwork as a philosophy, to be of use whenever one can. There is also much to say about what this does with one’s relationship with work and with their community. Often, we can lose ourselves in self-referential and abstract work which we do not see completed to its end. In my experience in manufacturing, I have only ever been part of the assembly and construction of certain products, and only in my limited involvement. Feeling immense joy for the completion of a meaningful project and seeing its benefits conveyed to its recipient, the community, or the world is an unfamiliar territory for a lot of modern jobs. That being said, I do believe there are many opportunities to cultivate a sensation of accomplishment and satisfaction and pursue it as part of the purpose of our lives. Not merely to fulfill our own wishes and ambitions but to aspire to be as useful as we can be to others. And not to be contented with one narrow skill or activity which may be of value, but to explore many facets of ourselves that could have valued and useful applications.

    Lesson Three – the multitudes of humanity; jack of all trades, master of none… or one… or two… or…

    Leonardo Da Vinci was a polymath, a person of varied and comprehensive learning and skill. As a young man, he was apprenticed to a local Florentine artisan named Verrocchio. Verrocchio was himself a painter, sculptor, and goldsmith, which was not unusual for the time. Many workshops involved interdisciplinary work undertaken by trained artisans who found it natural to combine semi-related pursuits under one roof. As such, Leonardo was trained in the use of many different tools and skills, not only as a painter. This work would benefit him greatly later in life when he found it necessary to build some ingenious tools and machines.

    In the modern age, starting before the Industrial Revolution, people found it wonderfully beneficial to specialize in their profession and to pursue specialization to a greater and greater degree. This can accomplish great economic feats and makes for a highly effective and productive civilization. But the drawbacks, seen in extreme specialization, are a kind of a dehumanizing effect in which one becomes just another cog in a mechanized framework. For some focused and dedicated people, specialization is the name of the game and they may become decorated surgeons of one specific organ, deeply passionate intellectuals involved in one area of academics, or the many outliers who distinguish themselves in physical, spiritual, or economic development which others cannot fathom. And for still many others, the development of multiple interests, skills, passions, and accomplishments feels more human, dynamic, and nuanced.

    Having multiple interests can, in fact, help the development of each of them more than if someone were to develop a myopic view of their pursuit in a vacuum. Leonardo was one of the first people to investigate human anatomy. He recorded his investigations in many intricate and hauntingly beautiful drawings of the musculature, the skeleton, the brain and nervous system, the heart and circulatory system. His science informed his arts and his arts informed his science. Combining different pursuits may shake something loose which helps your development in an unexpected way. One might catch a glimpse at the underlying principles of existence, just by looking at the world from different viewpoints, first as a painter, then a sculptor, then a scientist, then an engineer. Maybe not those things in particular, but in any case, the multitudes of interests you find it necessary to follow in your life. Whether we explore many paths in our lives or dedicate ourselves to a singular ambition, we can do our best work when we are familiar with many different tools.

    Lesson Four – Commitment to life, commitment to mastery.

    The irascible genius who neglects the obligations of his daily life in order to achieve greatness is such a popular story in today’s world that it is practically a cliché. Stories of unfettered obsession and of surpassing one’s limitations excite the mind. In Leonardo’s case, his genius was certainly, at times, of the isolating type. But his story is not one of self-sacrifice for the sake of his work but a story of an extremely disciplined and curious man who did his best to muddle through life while entertaining his drive for mastery.

    Leonardo wrote in his notebook, “A life profitably employed affords a happy death.” He did not mean profitably employed as merely earning a lot of money throughout one’s life but rather being continuously engaged in work that is beneficial, ambitious, beautiful, and meaningful. At the same time as he was engaged in this work, Leonardo always struggled with his attention to detail and his desire to achieve perfection. This led him to leave many works incomplete, such as St. Jerome in the Desert or the Adoration of the Magi. His aim for perfection also led him to spend so long on commissions that payments were refused or fought over and entire artworks abandoned.

    Throughout his life, Leonardo seemed to struggle with a commitment to life and a commitment to mastery. At times, his commitment to perfection prevented him from fulfilling some of those aims that may have been extremely useful and meaningful. At other times, the need to be pragmatic and tactful may have denied him the pleasure of pursuing the perfection he envisioned, spurring him forward. I am sure many of us can relate to this paradox. The obligations and practicality of daily life have us dreaming of a far-off perfection. Our dreams of perfection prevent us from the meaningful work which we could cultivate right here in our daily life. It is a hard lesson that one must learn the hard way, again and again: to balance the commitment we make to life with the commitment we make to mastery.

    Lesson Five – The Magic Square; Collaboration and Individual Achievement.

    One of Leonardo’s ‘hobbies’ was to do mathematical exercises in his notebooks. There are some geometrical calculations that are ornate and useful, though there are some mathematicians that say that Leonardo did not necessarily provide anything new or valuable to the field of mathematics. It was simply another part of his endless curiosity and his exploration of the world in which he found himself.

    One particular mathematical exercise he played with over the years is called a ‘magic square’. These magic squares are grids of numbers that add up to the same value whether you are adding the columns, rows, or the main diagonals. (An example is provided in the image above). I do not think the symbolic and metaphorical quality of these exercises were lost on Leonardo, who enjoyed finding harmonies in a complex system comprised of individual parts.

    In fact, the artisan workshops of that age were very much like a magic square, in that collaboration between many individual artists created a harmony that far exceeded any particular individual’s talent. While the products of these workshops were collaborative efforts, it was also important that each individual express themselves exactly as they were, or else the ‘magic square’ would be ruined.

    There are many art pieces of magic squares in Europe that are engraved with the phrase “Whatever thou art, act well thy part.” Whatever you are, act well your part. Paired with this image of mathematical harmony, it is a powerful message about the individual being valued, developed, and attaining natural expression, all while collaborating with others in a harmonious way to create something larger than each of them.

    There are many extreme views that say that only collective realities exist, or only individuals exist, but they lose the nuance of humanity which Leonardo was well aware of and practiced every day; individual expression is just as much a part of humanity as is connection, communication, and harmony. Imagine if Leonardo’s talent was stifled in order to exalt the artists’ collective workshop. Imagine if Leonardo had never made these valuable connections, or never collaborated with other prominent artists of the time. In either case, we would have been denied the beautiful and transcendent works of a genius, of the archetypal Renaissance man.

    Conclusion

    After doing a deep dive into the facts of Leonardo’s life, I have come away with many valuable lessons. While this post is by no means intended as a biography of the man himself, I wanted to put down a handful of these lessons in good work (and goodwork!). For anyone who would like an actual biography of Leonardo, I would recommend reading Walter Isaacson’s ‘Leonardo Da Vinci’ as it is so thorough and thought-provoking as well as being an enjoyable read. If you are interested in hearing some of the man’s thoughts themselves, I would recommend checking out a book on his collected works, typically snippets taken from his many codices.

    As for me, I want to begin following my curiosity more, I want to dedicate myself to mastery and idealism, I want to embrace and cultivate ideas of the fantastical and purely creative imagination, I want to engage in meaningful and useful work each day, and find a workshop of likeminded artisans to share my passion with. For Leonardo!