Learning to Garden
And listen for the voices of my ancestors
When I listen to Black, POC, and Indigenous women speak about their ancestors, I am silent. Because over generations, whiteness has silenced the voices of our ancestors. When they share the how, why, what, where, when, and who of their ancestors’ narratives, I sit at their feet in sacred observance. Because we (white folks) have lost the thread of our ancestors’ truth under the burden of colonialism, religion, empire, white supremacy, privilege, shame, and more.
Putting my fingers into the stream of ancestor wisdom is not something I was ever taught. I learned bigotry, God’s rage, words used like weapons, and family dysfunction from porch swings, kitchen tables, and church pews. I never learned how to listen for my great, great grandmothers’ voices. I was not taught how to seek and find their ways. Everything I learned silenced the voices of ancient women. My inheritance is frayed.
My Garden and Learning to Listen
I put my hands deep in the dirt to make a hole for a young tomato plant and the soil is warm to the touch. I didn’t know this would be true… how warm it is beneath the surface at the height of the day. I imagine my great, great, great grandmother tending to her kitchen gardens on that mountain side. I feel the sun’s warmth on her face. I feel the dirt under her nails. I hear the children playing on the hillside beside the house. I see the baby on a blanket by her side.
I sit with her in the garden as she pulls weeds, and urges seedlings to grow to provide sustenance for her family. I put a straw hat on my head and an apron around my body and I feel the ache in her back and the sweat on her brow. I pick up a tool to dig and I feel the hum of her song on my heart.
She was living once. She was half a dozen kids deep and pies cooling on the windowsill. She was homemade noodles and bacon gravy on fresh baked bread. She was a swollen belly and baby at her breast. She was and is that fascination with front porch sitting - racing in my blood.
She didn’t wear shoes but in the winter, or to church, or when heading into town. She lived, birthed, breathed, and died on that mountain. And I don’t even know her name.
This white ancestor who is so disconnected from my current identity because I was raised in whiteness… she is quietly calling me back to her. I was never taught how to find her or hear her song in the world around me.
I’m growing a garden this year. We put up raised beds during spring break. The husband and the kids helped me lug the bags of dirt from the truck bed. Shovel after shovel, we filled the garden with fresh earth.
Mother’s Day weekend, I pushed seeds under soil. I planted young plants with uncalloused hands as my weak body protested at bending and shaping new. Fibromyalgia is not my friend. She’s that pain in my bones and tissue that throbs for no reason. She’s been difficult to tame. Last year at this time, I could barely keep my head up for long periods of time. This year with new meds… I’m upright and moving.
I’ve written before about god in the yard. But it’s not really god I’m sitting and listening to and for anymore. That part of me is undone and I have no desire to put her back together again. All this time post church and post deconstruction and unraveling faith in an uppercase God, I’m leaning in to and listening for the whispers of my great, great grandmothers on the wind and in the dirt.
They grab my face between calloused hands and whisper words of affirmation over my life, my heart, and my home. They know the generational wounds they perpetuated and the ones they burned to ash. They are proud of the cycles I’m choosing to unravel for myself. I’m not broken like religion taught me. I’m not afraid like churched folks needed me to be. I’m not a black sheep or an unwanted grandchild. I am vastly loved.
I am ok.
From the garden,
J.