Hang on, little tomato

Yesterday was Earth Day, stewards. Let us give thanks for the many gifts the earth brings. I spent some time yesterday listening to the earth. At dusk the cardinals were playing near my fern that is losing fronds because of the nest they built inside. I don’t mind. I couldn’t quite spot it, but a woodpecker visited at least three different trees. Oh, to be a bird on a sunny day. I took a moment to sit and talk to my vegetable seedlings. This year is the first time I’ve sown seeds directly into a garden bed. It’s been… interesting. They all germinated, to my delight. But a gardening mishap contributed to the loss of all the leaves on four of my tomatoes. I was devastated that morning when I found them. I own three pairs of gardening gloves and I never use them because I love the feeling of dirt on my hands. Which is not always the best practice, mind you, a bark scorpion reminded me of that last weekend. But I’ve decided the bare stalks are sticking around for a bit while I germinate new seeds. I sang to them one of my favorite songs, called “Hang On, Little Tomato” by the band Pink Martini.

Just hang on

Hang on to the vine

Stay on

Soon you’ll be divine

If you start to cry, look up to the sky

Somethings coming up ahead to turn your tears to dew instead

And so I hold on to this advice

When change is hard and not so nice

If you listen to your heart the whole night through

Your sunny someday will come one day soon to you

I don’t know if my tomatoes will live without leaves, they’re crucial for photosynthesis. And maybe I sang that song to them because it used to make me cry on difficult days when I was a teenager, and there is something sacred in finding God in the smallest, most fragile thing. There were days… there are still days when I feel like a leafless lost cause. But that’s why I need Earth Day. I’ve seen basil flourish in abandoned pots, and sago palms grow pups after a long freeze. Put your hand down on the grass and trust in the pulse of the earth that is infinitely, and intimately connected through systems of roots. 

Barbara Brown Taylor wrote about the sacred practice of walking on the earth. When we take the time to feel the earth move under our feet (Carole King style) and take in the sensation of it as if it truly were holy ground, you might begin to feel the ground pressing back. These things, she writes, “have been around so much longer than you have.”

It is humbling for us, as stewards of the earth, to recognize that all of creation existed before we did, and without any of our help. There is so much we can learn about being in relationship with each other if only we paid attention to what is growing underneath our feet. Hang on, little tomato, things will be alright.