#64: Family Gardening as a Guide

My sister, Jaime, helps to lead gardening classes once a week on Sunday's with the organization Intergenerate. It's a family gardening class with kids between the ages 4-12. The garden is a giving-garden meaning that everything they grow is contributed to the Neighbor's Link subsidized Farmers Market. So cool ! 

- Amanda

Jaime Posa    posa.jaime@gmail.com  

Family Gardening as a Guide 

A giant Earthworm wiggles its way up from the ground and the kids squeal with delight. “Look at this bug!” Someone else shouts, and I feel a spritz of water on the back of my legs as someone walks by with a tilted watering can. We grab the “Good Bug, Bad Bug” book to see if we’ve got a garden friend or a garden foe. Meanwhile, Sam is munching on his fourth bowl of self-picked salad.

There is more joy and wonder and curiosity packed into this hour long family gardening class than one could ever imagine. Most times, we have no idea what to expect. And that’s really the best part: Total uncertainty and a big open mind. 

And while we’re super-duper excited anytime we show up in the garden and find a new sprout or stalk or set of true leaves, we’re not all that caught up in our likelihood of success as we’re digging around, chatting, and planting. 

Most days, the kids lead the lessons. Wherever their attention goes, the lesson follows. And many times, there ends up being no premeditated lesson at all. Rather, the class becomes a side-by-side process of discovery and discussion of parent and child, teacher and student. It’s a conversation. It’s an open-ended question that doesn’t necessarily get answered. It’s a seed planted. 

And while, of course, there’s some sort of order and organization, in the garden, there doesn't seem to be any strict delineations. As we dig into our work, things organically begin to flow and each individual naturally returns to his or her way of being. There’s no pressure. There’s no set beginning and end to our work. And there’s no real sense of hierarchy between kids and grown-ups, between leader and follower, nor between man and nature. There’s no who’s-who. Everyone’s just doing their part and being who they are, and seemingly, growing and learning and connecting and enjoying themselves as they go. 

It’s like we’re all in it together, the human beings and the bugs and the beds of Earth, and there’s no need to say that out loud or write it as a mission statement or teach people what it means. It’s just simply the way things are. 

Jaime's first-person bio:

I teach and I write and I create things and I see if

I can be a better listener more consistently every day. I enjoy using food, nature and yoga as tools for experiencing a deeper sense of joy, connection and freedom (within myself and with other beings). I began regularly referring to myself as a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer in 2012, after serving more than 2 years in El Salvador, and I aways refer to that because that experience is an inflection point for when I began more intentionally living. I actually sometimes say that Peace Corps "saved my life" and I kinda sorta mean that. My biggest joy in my work is when a child's face lights up.