Handle with Care

Sweetgrass the plant. Sweetgrass the metaphor for life. Sweetgrass the spiritual offering. Sweetgrass the indigenous medicine.

While reading about sweetgrass last night I learned that picking it stimulates its growth. If it is not picked from, pulled at, and grazed on occasionally then the upcoming new growth becomes hindered. The new beginnings can be suffocated by the stagnancy of the old stuff. In fact, sweetgrass can die off and disappear completely from an otherwise healthy swaths of land if it is not challenged to grow, if the superficial and outward facing layers are not pealed back and pulled away.

Upon learning this I paused from reading for a moment to think…

To think about people.

To think about life.

To think about myself.  

Maybe some of us are like sweetgrass. We evolve from and thrive on the challenges we face. Deep down to our roots we need challenge and crave change in order to continue to grow into the people we were always meant to be - the resilient people this world always seems to be in dire need of. Maybe the best of us are sweetgrass souls, those who choose to grow vibrantly and generously not in spite of our challenges but because of them; and even when our struggles pick us apart, we metabolize the challenges into a kind of grace. A regeneration. A rebirth. A new beginning. Like sweetgrass. 

I think about how today our society only ever idolizes other people, and oftentimes people with the narrow appeal of either money, power, or perfection. I think about how different all our lives would be if what is on the inside counted for as much as what is on the outside. I think about other animals and plants….about how similar we all are. I think about the optimism and inspiration I find in that similarity and sameness.

There is a lot of life going on in this big world, whether you see it first hand or not, whether you face your challenges head on or not. And even though many people get caught up in differences, by either trying to be different themselves- to stand out, to make a name, to be remembered-  or trying to exclude someone or something because of its differences, it is okay to settle for sameness. Sameness brings connection, and connection is what life is all for.

We all should spend a little time in our life pealing back the layers, letting go of what no longer serves, and making room for what is to come. And I hope we do. I hope each one of us grows to appreciate that underneath it all, at our roots, we are more similar than we are different. Just soft supple blades of sweet grass building up the inspiration and the will to begin again.

“Sometimes I wish I could photosynthesize so that just by being, just by shimmering at the meadow's edge or floating lazily on a pond, I could be doing the work of the world while standing silent in the sun.”