Listening

"Sit at your desk and listen." Franz Kafka

Listen to the chorus of people hollering outside your window, and to that intermittent motor as it starts and stops repeatedly.

Listen to the kids at the nearby elementary school as they negotiate and compromise during recess.

Listen to how your eyes close in the warm sunlight as you start your day on the roof.

Listen to the wind whisper near concrete.

Listen to your own unresolved stomach and the roughness of your feet.

Listen to your calf muscles, which carry you around.

Listen to the nesting pigeons that never seem to stop moving.

Listen to the truck backing up.

Listen to the shifting shadows dancing on the wall.

Listen to your own not-so-silent beating heart.

Plant Marketing

“There's a party

…and you're not invited.”

That's the feeling I get from most traditional marketing I come into contact with. It has a desperate feeling of exclusion mixed with feigned urgency.

But what about the way plants do marketing? Through fruit. Through pollination. By quietly turning sunlight into food and trusting that what's good will be found. Then sustaining life through deliciousness.

A peach tree doesn't send you urgent emails about limited-time sweetness. It just makes peaches. When they're ready, the right creatures come for them.

Plants spread their seeds by creating something worth spreading. The fruit is the message and the medium. The value is built in.

What if we create actual abundance because we care more?

What if the marketing was a better quality thing itself?

There's something about patience, too. Plants grow slowly and they take their time to root well. Quality finds its way to the right people.

Let the fiber, nutrients, and deliciousness do the talking for you.

Let it grow (A message to myself)

Overwatering is widely recognized as one of the most common causes of houseplant death.

All projects in our lives are plants experiencing real, natural cycles.

Air, sun, water, and nutrients are required. Adequate space in the garden, too.

Most of all, we need patience.

The hardest thing for some of us to do is downshift.

I don’t need to keep checking on the plant.

Let it grow.

Night gardens