Life....Abundantly

Later today, I am going to cut up this pomegranate. Not because I want to eat it, although I'm sure I will. No, my plans for this pomegranate are to try to plant some of the seeds in hopes of being able to grow a pomegranate tree.

Will it work? I don't know. I've read online that pomegranates are relatively easy to grow from seeds, BUT that it is unlikely that the fruit produced by the seedling tree will be the same as the original fruit. Why bother, then?

That's the question I pondered this morning in the dark when I woke up at 6:00 (school habits remain, even on Christmas break), and I came up with an explanation that sounds a little weird but is exactly what I think is going on with me right now.

The news is so depressing these days - tensions that could lead to unnecessary war, impeachment hearings and questions about adherence to the processes outlined in the constitution, immigrant children being separated from their parents and the trauma from that stretching into the future, policies that roll back all the protections for the environment and that ignore the damage we are doing to the world. And that's just the national picture; add on the little frustrations from work and family, and it was would so easy to despair.

As all this is going on, I find myself compelled to grow things. Part of that could be explained, I suppose, by the fact that we are trying to get our farm business in the black. I think it's more than that, though, because pomegranate is not going to be a viable farm product. I don't need three fig trees. Why am I planning to pay better attention to the ginger pots in the aquaponics house? Why am I trying to come up with a rotation that will keep something growing in the herb garden all summer - and all winter? Why am I feeding that bowl of sourdough starter on the cabinet every day when I bake maybe once a week, less as school gets going? Why do I have three jars of kombucha brewing in my bedroom (the warmest part of the house)?

The answer I found this morning was that all these things are life and hope, and I crave them. Even in January, when the apple trees are dormant, they promise life; in the spring, they will put on buds that will uncurl into soft green leaves and maybe those beautiful flowers and maybe, this year, the first little green apples. The bright green lettuces in the aquaponics house and the little outdoor greenhouse have a short life span, but they look so cheery, whether they are waiting to be set out or are grown into a full-size head ready for harvest. Even my kombucha, with its creepy-looking SCOBY suspended in the jar, is teeming with innumberable bacteria and yeast, sharing with me the delicious by-product of their life.

So I will go and prune the apples in the next week or so, and I will water the lettuces and feed the sourdough starter, trying to do my part to nurture and support that life. I will clean off those pomegranate seeds and stick them in potting soil, hoping to see a pale green stem bending its back to break through the surface in a few days. Little green things - the antidote to despair.