Nurture

I ate the first strawberry from the garden today, and let me tell you, it was magnificent. The best strawberry i’ve had all year. Juicy, full of flavour, and deeply satisfying.

Not because i am a good gardener, but in some way because i feel pride in having tended to the garden through the winter, in having fought back the weeds in the spring, in welcoming the nesting birds, and in seeing the bees clustering around the flowers. I feel pride in having touched the soil and watched the skies. Not, as i say, in doing it well, but in doing it with care.

I talk sometimes about the role we play within our systems, and describe a relative, a farmer, who i used to see walking the fields of his farm. Not making the crops grow, but rather watching the landscape, just constantly reading it, in tune with it, at one with it. On a very small scale, that is how i feel today.

It may sounds melodramatic, but i think this is why we tend to things: the satisfaction we feel is out of kilter with the actual physical reward. It’s partly a spiritual one. Again: you may be surprised to hear me talk about spirituality as i normally share my identity as a scientist to the fore. But gardens are spiritual spaces: a little bit of nature that we choose to care for, much as we may choose to care for part of our broader ecosystem, social or otherwise.

In Quiet Leadership we talk of the Organisation as Ecosystem, and how each of us tends to one garden of field. Not as an act of drama or power, but as an individual act of care.