Compost

[woodsgnome]

For a long while, the book The Secret Garden and its 1975 BBC-TV adaptation played a huge role in altering my thnking. While I've had gardens here and there over the years, I just never gave it lots of thought. Finding that story, first suggested by someone on this forum, rejuvenated my thought about gardens. I no longer see them as just pretty places or a system of food production, but in reference to one's entire life.

In the story, Mary Lennox becomes enchanted with the idea of finding this secret garden she keeps hearing snippets about. Once she finds it, what she does with it becomes so much more than merely a nice project to have. Sure, she reacted to the magic of plants and all that goes with them. But deep down, mostly unsaid, it was a form of therapy for her. Yes, it was a garden; yet it represented her whole life. Plus, as she told her new companion Dickon once, she'd prefer it not just be a "tidy" garden, but have wild aspects to it, a place where she'd discover new things.

I became so engrossed with the tale that I'm sure my T was on the edge of feeling bored with my enthusiasm for the story. But once she actually unwittingly added to my mystique by something she said about compost. Actually I'd mentioned it first, and then only in passing reference to something else. Afterwards my T wondered if I'd ever considered how I could use the off-handed comment in reference to my own issues.

She suggested that I give it some thought. She's good at planting (a very apt word in this regard) -- suggestions that I might pick up on. In this instance the light bulb flicked on to the idea of compost.  Compost is, after all, formed mostly from leftovers. One could just throw them out, haul them away, or even burn them at some point, but composting presents an alternative. Fertilizer comes to mind in this regard, but even that often comes by way of an unplanned process of mixing the no longer needed ingredients into the formation of something new that can still benefit future plantings.

I'm hoping you catch the drift. For me it set in motion the idea that even the dregs and discards of life can somehow fit and function into one's ongoing story. Instead of plants only, in this instance I'm talking life. My preference would be for the easy -- toss the old story aside, haul it away, burn it, etc. While I'd love to do that with everything in my life up to my early 20's, and even some well beyond that, it became apparent that the old stuff had a way of haunting my adulthood too. In the gardening context, all that old material tended to still stink.

Well, okay -- so along comes this notion of composting. Not  valuing the decaying matter for itself, but finding a way to add it, rot and all, and maybe even seeing it transform into something else I had no idea might happen. I've experienced some changing perspective via these subtle mood shifts. Like so much else in Cptsd-land, it's not perfect, but part of the new wild garden, like Mary Lennox said she'd dreamed of for her 'piece of land' (and life).

In some ways I've come to regard therapy as resembling a huge mental compost pile. What to do with the messy, smelly, still-rotting leftovers? I tend to think in pictures, and that's one I like to contemplate. And begin to picture the newly created plants growing in just where they need to be. I've still discarded the leftovers, but in a way this transformation bears more promise than I'd ever thought of before. 

[Armee]

I love this...like the concept of post-traumatic growth but put in a way that doesn't gloss over and diminish the significant pain that came first.

[rainydiary]

Woodsgnome, I am glad you brought this up.  I hadn't thought of it in a long time but I used to love watching the 1993 film version. 

When I think back on it now, I was so drawn to the experience of Mary and how lonely and angry and in pain she was.  She brought that with her to a house full of the same things.  I especially remember in that movie how the father eventually sees his son playing and living and enjoying himself in the garden. 

I now see all the trauma these characters were living with and how the garden became a way for them to integrate their trauma and move forward. 

I think the idea of compost is so good.  It reminds of a post I've seen around on social media of late that talks about how a caterpillar's transformation into a butterfly is a rather disgusting and painful process. 

I see connection between these types of transformations be they compost formation, turning into a butterfly, or healing by adjusting how our brain responds to something.  I wish we didn't have to experience pain yet it does seem part of the process. 

[Blueberry]

woodsgnome, I loved reading your post!

[Armee]

I forgot to comment on the Secret Garden part! One of the things I rescued from my moms house was an old copy of the book which I have very fond memories of my Grandma reading to me amd my sis when we'd stay with her. I loved that book. Its held together with duct tape. What that book means to me is less about the story and more about the importance of earned secure attachment figures. If it weren't for my grandparents I don't see how I would have stood a chance in this world. I loved them so much. Their deaths were very hard on me and I miss them still a couple decades later.

[Blueberry]

 

[Hope67]

I'm hoping you catch the drift. For me it set in motion the idea that even the dregs and discards of life can somehow fit and function into one's ongoing story. Instead of plants only, in this instance I'm talking life.

Well, okay -- so along comes this notion of composting. Not  valuing the decaying matter for itself, but finding a way to add it, rot and all, and maybe even seeing it transform into something else I had no idea might happen. I've experienced some changing perspective via these subtle mood shifts. Like so much else in Cptsd-land, it's not perfect, but part of the new wild garden, like Mary Lennox said she'd dreamed of for her 'piece of land' (and life).

And begin to picture the newly created plants growing in just where they need to be. I've still discarded the leftovers, but in a way this transformation bears more promise than I'd ever thought of before. 

Hi Woodsgnome,
I really like your ideas and appreciate the visual image you conveyed through your words - I can see the Secret Garden, and I often imagine being there, and appreciating the newly created plants.  I love the positivity of your recognition that the transformation bears more promise than you ever thought of before, that is really inspiring, and I hope that we all create something that feels transformative in a good way.  If that's what each person wants of course. 
Hope