ballerina cappuccina

When farmers grow the same crop too many years in a row, it can leave their soil depleted of minerals and other nutrients that are vital to the health of their fields.

To avoid this, farmers will often alternate the crops that they grow because some plants will use up different minerals (such as nitrogen) while other plants replenish those minerals. This process is known as “crop rotation.”

So the next time you find that you need to step away from a project to work on something else for a while, don’t beat yourself up for “quitting” that project. Give yourself permission to practice “mental crop rotation” to maintain a healthy brain field.

It’s important, though, to understand that during the fallow period, no nutrients are removed from that ground, and nothing is expected of it. Whatever the land grows then, it keeps, and it gets tilled back in or decomposes in place, to return its energy to the earth.

We’re not allowed, in our current society, to just let our minds be fallow for a bit, to produce nothing for export, to make nothing that can be sold. But it’s part of good land stewardship, to give every field time when it doesn’t need to give you anything back. 

- you join a zoom call. everyone’s mic is muted, but no one is talking anyway. you stare at the squares with faces in them. which is your face? you can’t be sure.

- the news is full of numbers. you try to learn what they mean, but the articles are full of jargon from fields you have no experience in, and you swear the numbers change when you blink. 

- you wake up. you sleep. you wake up. you sleep. how many days was that? you have no idea.

- you go for a walk. a shadow follows you down the street, moving when you move, stopping when you stop. always the recommended six feet away.

- every day you get several emails from corporations you’ve never heard of. each company name sounds fake, too vague, too optimistic. “Stay healthy! :)” they say. “We’re committed to keeping you safe! You must stay healthy! We love you very much! We learned everything about you so we can keep you safe! Please believe us we love you so much we’ r e  , s 0Rry:):)):))”  You try to unsubscribe, but the link just takes you to a blank black webpage. Suddenly, you can make out your reflection in the screen. What’s that over your shoulder?

🌷trash 🌷