Watching the corn grow
Although I was born a city boy, by age 5, for the second and last time, my family loaded up a truck with all our worldly possessions and make the trip from Chicago to Oklahoma where my father’s parents lived. I would not travel again in real time more than 100 miles from our home (that was only twice if my memory) until I was 18. From approximately age 5 to age 16 my mother, father, and 3 siblings would live in a three-room house. We moved from there shortly after my youngest sister was born. Although there were many chores, I somehow always found time for reading. There was no electricity, no television and only on occasion a radio hooked up to the car battery. Actually, that is not true. There was a transistor, Diamond match box sized radio which sometimes would bring programs such as “The Squeaking Door”. When the weather permitted and I could safely escape without fear of extreme punishments, one could find me in the arms of an oak or hickory tree reading. I read anything that would feed my imagination or remind me that the world was larger than the one I then experienced.
I was also, much to my mother’s frustration, a day dreamer. I could spend much valuable chore time just staring off into space or watching the corn or other vegetables grow. Although I had a mind which could easily wander from question to question and possibility to possibility instead of focusing on the task at hand, I could also spend a lot of time with no conscious thoughts at all. Those were blissful moments. I was not worried about school, whether I would ever amount to anything, or the various and seemingly endless ways I could displease my parents. Actually, I had, according to my mother, become an expect at finding ways to misbehave. To be fair I was not the perfect farmhand or the best assistant for my father who was always building something - a motor, a boat, a mobile home, a piece of art or furniture. His talents seem endless. When not active, he could be found sitting in the only “easy” chair I recall being in our house, dressed in his bathrobe, reading some book or designing something and calling out, “Daisy, bring me a cup of tea.” (Daisy was his wife, our mother.)
I never saw our mother reading and it was not until the children were grown that I discovered how much she liked to read - for pleasure and to learn.
Those times when I had no conscious thoughts or worries I would later come to call my “watching the corn grow” times. I might now talk about the spiritual practice of emptying my mind and just being present. In those days, I thought of that time as more zoning out or a way to escape. It did not occur to me to explore the use of alcohol or later other drugs to speed me to this “absence of stress” space. I seemed to have a natural talent for empting my mind.
By the time that I was into my thirties and had filled my days and evening with work, school, pleasure reading, chores, and when I had our son with me, parenting, and, yes, worrying there seemed to be no time to empty my mind until I fell into bed. Occasionally, however, I would steal some time. When living in Hoonah, Alaska, I might go to be with the trout stream. When in Juneau I would hike to the mountain stream and have long conversations with the stream on the nature of beingness. I could also just sit and allow myself to flow into the stream.
While living in Indiana I made friends with a couple who taught at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky. In my memory, they lived in the middle of a corn field in Paint Lick, Garrard County, Kentucky. When I would get worn out I would visit my friends, sit in the rocking chair on the porch and watch the corn grow. I think I only actually visited them only once or twice, but in my mind Paint Lick became a metaphor for allowing myself to just be present.
Many of my friends and their families are now taking disconnected holidays – times when agree to not check their email, texts or social media sites, answer their phone, listen to the radio or the television, play with hand held games or otherwise be anyplace other than where they are. They are being very intentional about watching the corn grow or becoming one with the corn. Of course, they may be in the woods, at the beach, on a mountain, in a canoe or kayaks, but they are losing self to find self.
Today I daily take time just to watch the corn grow. Despite the fact that I can and often am the consummate energizer bunny, I can spend hours watching the corn grow or just observing the million shades of green of the foliage in the tiny forest which sits behind my house. It seems as if we all need time when we empty our minds so as to allow new ideas or feeling to emerge – new music, new art, new feelings, new dances. I recall when my friend Frank began to work as a graphic designer for an employer who knew that one had to just sit and wait for the new ideas to emerge or coalesce. At first Frank was worried that his boss would be expecting him to be actively productive – to look productive, but his boss reassured him that he knew that new ideas would emerge if one made space for them.
I suspect that parents, teachers and others who are responsible for the next generations of leaders will need to be very intentional about giving the very connected children permission to stop and watch the corn grow. I fear if they do not learn that this is a necessary practice they will resort to the use or drugs to numb out which is not the same as being present. Watching the corn grow may prove uncomfortable for many adults as well as some of the children, but, once experienced and claimed, the need for this practice will not leave them.
Written June 8, 2017
Although I was born a city boy, by age 5, for the second and last time, my family loaded up a truck with all our worldly possessions and make the trip from Chicago to Oklahoma where my father’s parents lived. I would not travel again in real time more than 100 miles from our home (that was only twice if my memory) until I was 18. From approximately age 5 to age 16 my mother, father, and 3 siblings would live in a three-room house. We moved from there shortly after my youngest sister was born. Although there were many chores, I somehow always found time for reading. There was no electricity, no television and only on occasion a radio hooked up to the car battery. Actually, that is not true. There was a transistor, Diamond match box sized radio which sometimes would bring programs such as “The Squeaking Door”. When the weather permitted and I could safely escape without fear of extreme punishments, one could find me in the arms of an oak or hickory tree reading. I read anything that would feed my imagination or remind me that the world was larger than the one I then experienced.
I was also, much to my mother’s frustration, a day dreamer. I could spend much valuable chore time just staring off into space or watching the corn or other vegetables grow. Although I had a mind which could easily wander from question to question and possibility to possibility instead of focusing on the task at hand, I could also spend a lot of time with no conscious thoughts at all. Those were blissful moments. I was not worried about school, whether I would ever amount to anything, or the various and seemingly endless ways I could displease my parents. Actually, I had, according to my mother, become an expect at finding ways to misbehave. To be fair I was not the perfect farmhand or the best assistant for my father who was always building something - a motor, a boat, a mobile home, a piece of art or furniture. His talents seem endless. When not active, he could be found sitting in the only “easy” chair I recall being in our house, dressed in his bathrobe, reading some book or designing something and calling out, “Daisy, bring me a cup of tea.” (Daisy was his wife, our mother.)
I never saw our mother reading and it was not until the children were grown that I discovered how much she liked to read - for pleasure and to learn.
Those times when I had no conscious thoughts or worries I would later come to call my “watching the corn grow” times. I might now talk about the spiritual practice of emptying my mind and just being present. In those days, I thought of that time as more zoning out or a way to escape. It did not occur to me to explore the use of alcohol or later other drugs to speed me to this “absence of stress” space. I seemed to have a natural talent for empting my mind.
By the time that I was into my thirties and had filled my days and evening with work, school, pleasure reading, chores, and when I had our son with me, parenting, and, yes, worrying there seemed to be no time to empty my mind until I fell into bed. Occasionally, however, I would steal some time. When living in Hoonah, Alaska, I might go to be with the trout stream. When in Juneau I would hike to the mountain stream and have long conversations with the stream on the nature of beingness. I could also just sit and allow myself to flow into the stream.
While living in Indiana I made friends with a couple who taught at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky. In my memory, they lived in the middle of a corn field in Paint Lick, Garrard County, Kentucky. When I would get worn out I would visit my friends, sit in the rocking chair on the porch and watch the corn grow. I think I only actually visited them only once or twice, but in my mind Paint Lick became a metaphor for allowing myself to just be present.
Many of my friends and their families are now taking disconnected holidays – times when agree to not check their email, texts or social media sites, answer their phone, listen to the radio or the television, play with hand held games or otherwise be anyplace other than where they are. They are being very intentional about watching the corn grow or becoming one with the corn. Of course, they may be in the woods, at the beach, on a mountain, in a canoe or kayaks, but they are losing self to find self.
Today I daily take time just to watch the corn grow. Despite the fact that I can and often am the consummate energizer bunny, I can spend hours watching the corn grow or just observing the million shades of green of the foliage in the tiny forest which sits behind my house. It seems as if we all need time when we empty our minds so as to allow new ideas or feeling to emerge – new music, new art, new feelings, new dances. I recall when my friend Frank began to work as a graphic designer for an employer who knew that one had to just sit and wait for the new ideas to emerge or coalesce. At first Frank was worried that his boss would be expecting him to be actively productive – to look productive, but his boss reassured him that he knew that new ideas would emerge if one made space for them.
I suspect that parents, teachers and others who are responsible for the next generations of leaders will need to be very intentional about giving the very connected children permission to stop and watch the corn grow. I fear if they do not learn that this is a necessary practice they will resort to the use or drugs to numb out which is not the same as being present. Watching the corn grow may prove uncomfortable for many adults as well as some of the children, but, once experienced and claimed, the need for this practice will not leave them.
Written June 8, 2017
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