Lessons from Plants: Winter Edition

Plus a chance to meditate with them in LA

Hello! First of all, back by popular demand, I’m restarting plant-inspired meditations at our local plant nursery here in Santa Monica. This was a delightful series I launched last year, which I recapped in posts with audio + dharma talks here.

We begin Saturday, Jan 27th at 9am at Merrihew’s Sunset Gardens. If you’re in LA, please join me! We’ll announce subsequent dates as we go.

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Some of you are socked in with snow; some of you are oppressed by gray. In the northern hemisphere, it’s winter, baby. Here in LA, it’s the winter that we all came here for: “chilly” at night but blazing bright sun and cloudless blue sky by day.

It’s easy to forget it’s winter here. A friend in NY had to recently remind me: it’s not just winter the season, but it’s also winter the vibe. That means a wintry mix of things like burrowing, pausing, bundling, nestling, reflecting, quieting, and stoking.

We need a winter and, even more importantly, we need to winter. Even the seeds of the great strong sequoias, my friend reminded me, must bide their time buried deep in the winter snow so they can burst forth in summer’s wildfires.

This seems appropriate energy for someone with a 6-month old who doesn’t have a circadian rhythm, and who’s just emerging from the hibernation of maternity leave like a groggy bear who feels kind of…off.

While it can be hard to reconcile winter energy with the vivacious roller bladers on the Venice Boardwalk, there is one class of beings in LA who for sure knows it’s winter: the plants.

The plants keep track; their green little bodies keep score. They are sewn to the seasons because their lives depends on it.

Whenever I feel confused, adrift, or “off,” I turn to plants. For a lot of people this might mean plant medicine, like smoking or eating plants with special and psychedelic properties. But for me, I mean it literally. I look closely at my plants, seeking wisdom from them like the sages they are.

My crew of houseplants (as I do not [yet] have a yard, though…goals) reflect back to me the status of my internal equanimity, my presence of mind, and the mettle of my growth mindset. They teach me relentlessly, often whether I like it or not. Here’s what I’m gleaning recently:

1. An ending gives way to a beginning. Leave room for new growth.

While out walking several months ago, I spotted a cactus stem lying in the street. Not the middle of the street, but the worst part of the street: the edge, where the detritus gets spun up by the street sweeper every Monday between 3 and 6pm. It had fallen off one of my favorite, very tall neighborhood cacti (as I have grown familiar / familial with the flora in my area). It appeared either an abandoned cactus baby looking for a safe harbor or a cactus Kevin McAllister left absentmindedly behind by its cactus family. But there it lay, alone.

I gathered it, feeling lucky and maternal. I planted it in a small pot, watered it on and off, fertilized it with a little blood meal and kelp, and waited. A few months later, I spotted a sprout of new growth at the top. Surprise! Delight. I had sort of thought I needlessly planted a dead stem. Then again, some part of me must have had hope (or at least curiosity — curiosity is good where hope feels tough) or else I wouldn’t have tended to it as I did. As the second stem grew bigger, two aerial roots sprouted off it. She’s a climber! An Epiphyllum. Not only growing, but reaching for support for more growth to come. Support is required for growth.

Left: December 1; Right: January 18. Stuff is happening!!

2. Take up the space you currently have, then find more space and watch yourself expand to fill it. Keep going.

I bought a small Monstera off of a woman on the internet last year, before she moved to Chicago. It wasn’t a particularly impressive Monstera, but healthy enough. Since that time, I’ve upsized this Monstera’s pot twice. Each time, it’s just loved that move. It’s splayed further out in nearly every direction, new stems extending longer than previous ones. Heliotropic, yes (reaching toward the window) but also just reaching into luxurious, spacious, empty space of the room. A lot of plant tending is trial and error. In this case, it was trial and expansion.

As a fast-growing tall child, most of my clothes were purchased “a size too big” so that I would grow into them. Although it means the present moment is spent in something too baggy or blousy, the concept holds weight. It’s important to have room to grow and I did, indeed, grow into them.

Most of us take up as little space as possible or feel guilty when we do take it up. As an experiment, you might consider what an upsized pot for yourself might be. Could be more unstructured time, or a bigger risk. Could be a longer run or a voicing a more audacious dream. Just try it, and see what happens.

3. If your conditions aren’t supporting your growth, you can (and should) change them.

There’s a cool climbing plant I bought last year for our bedroom, which sadly has very little natural light. Good for a slumber cave, bad for a plant den. I searched for a “low light” plant, though later learned that there really aren’t any “low light plants,” just plants better at dying slowly and gracefully. (Wow if this isn’t its own metaphor for oppression…). It’s true the plant was very much not thriving. It was barely surviving. I wanted the greenery when I woke up, but the greenery clearly wanted out.

I knew, in my heart of hearts, that the conditions were not right for her. I wished they were, I wanted them so much to be. But that didn’t change the reality that they were not. So I had to face it and make a shift.

I moved the plant to a room with much more light. And… to a wall! Because she’s a climber and needed that support. The plant is happier. She is thriving. I changed the conditions to be the ones she needs, not the ones I wished she’d need. It’s really as simple as that.

This hits me so deeply because I’ve been there so many times in my life. Something you’re looking for in the cards but isn’t there. What is in the cards? What is within your sphere of influence and control? What are even the smallest choices you can make to thrive a little more?

Bonus lesson: sometimes shit happens, and you gotta let it go.

The first plant that taught me a lesson was an Orange Jasmine Bonsai Tree. It was a gift from my parents for my twelfth birthday. Other kids my age were receiving Filene’s gift cards or Starter jackets, but I received the high stakes responsibility of an exotic and delicate tree. I named the tree Morgaine, after Morgaine le Fay, the protagonist of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s 1983 The Mists of Avalon, a feminist re-telling of the Arthurian Legend, with which I was utterly and totally obsessed.

In fact I was consumed with longing to have, myself, been a Druid priestess in the Middle Ages, or at the very least, to have just lived in the Middle Ages. (Plague?! Early and forced marriages resulting in premature childbearing? A thirty year life expectancy? Rotting teeth? I wish!) You may be starting to understand why I received a bonsai tree and not a Filene’s gift card for my birthday.

I grew attached to Morgaine the Bonsai immediately. I soberly tended to her — watering, watching, and pruning. I was vividly aware of the responsibility on my shoulders and truly did my best. I set her proudly by my window atop a precarious plant stand built by my rustic worker father, whose precarious branching legs nestled into the medium pile carpet of my bedroom.

One day, in a typical haste, I bumped the plant stand and Morgaine went tumbling. Her heavy ceramic pot, handfuls of delicate white rocks, and her artistic branches succumbed to the rug. Try as I might to reconstitute her, she seemed permanently denigrated. Her stately bonsai layers all asunder; flustered soil mixed with pebbles and stray hairs from the carpet. She never recovered (so sensitive!) and died not long after.

I took it pretty hard. I tried my best, though it wasn’t good enough. Shit still happened. I had to let her go.

I was recently lamenting to a friend about a current houseplant that’s not doing well. “I’m trying different things, but it’s not doing well. I think I’m killing it.” “That doesn’t sound like a you thing, that just sounds like a life thing,” she said. I felt some relief.

Yeah, sometimes it’s just a life thing. Shit will happen and you gotta let it go.

If you’re in Los Angeles…

• Meditate monthly with me among the gardens at Merrihew’s nursery in Santa Monica. We start Saturday Jan 27th at 9am. All are welcome! Reach out with questions.

• Practice yoga weekly with me Fridays at 6pm at Love Yoga in Venice. Reach out if you want to be my guest.

In the ethers and otherwise…

When I’m not writing here, I’m a consultant + coach supporting folks 1:1 in a number of finely honed ways:

• Narrative coaching + voice cultivation for leadership. I spent decades doing this with leaders across the global health space. This is crucial self-efficacy work for anybody, + I love to support folks in this way.

• Executive thought partnership + creative strategic advising. Solving intractable problems + building audacious visions for long-term transformation.

• Mindfulness + ritual in navigating any aspect of fertility. I have been there myself + I will be there with you.

• Building everyday mindfulness practice + private yoga instruction. Meeting you where you are + supporting you to get to where you want to go.

If anything resonates, reach out and I’ll share more of my approach, offerings, etc.