From the Berry Brambles

A story about inconsistency

When I first moved to my house, there was a patch of black raspberries just behind the chicken coop. They were lush and green, with sweet fruits as big as the tip of your thumbnail.

I cherished those berries.

Every year, I ate them right off the bushes, then made gallons and gallons of black raspberry jam and syrup. I froze them for smoothies and cobblers in the winter, or made wine. I loved them.

A couple years later, another patch of black raspberries popped up under the mulberry tree. And later, another patch grew, on its own, by my back garden.

But much to my dismay, the original patch declined substantially.

I read raspberry books and I worked on saving them. I gave them compost. I trimmed the old canes. I set up trellises for them to climb on, I moved some….all the best practices. But they grew less and less vigorous.

(I’m sure glad I let those other patches grow because, despite my best efforts, most of the original patch didn’t make it.)

But interestingly enough, in time I observed that the other patches did exactly the same thing.

They flourished…
And then after some years, they fizzled out.

Raspberry bushes like to move, you see.

They don’t do well if they stay in one spot for too long.

The best way I’ve found to grow them is to let them creep and pop up in new places.

They grow effortlessly that way. No work required.

Our culture loves consistency and working for it. It’s part of that push-harder, get-more thing that’s engrained in us from an early age.

And so often, when our own interests or passions shift, we see it as a personal failing:

“I can’t stick to one thing!”
“Here we go again…on to something else.”
“I just started this hobby/project, I can’t give up on it now!”
“Why can’t I ever manage to finish anything?”
“But I have so much invested in this career/hobby/task!”

It can be exhausting mentally as we beat ourselves up, rather than finding ease and rest and joy in our current passions, interests, or fascinations.

But living with our eye on nature allows us a kinder lens.

Just like black raspberries, we can remember that things in nature move. They literally need to in order to flourish.

Raspberries remind us to relinquish our grip a little bit.

To make space for what is growing now—

Nature is shifting all the time.

And so are we.



xo,
Rhonda Linn

P.S. In the spirit of berry love, you might like to know that there’s berry juice on my lip in this photo. 😂

But seriously, here’s to welcoming change, and shifts and movement. There’s so much rest and ease there.

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In your life, what is asking to be explored? What feels like it might be interesting, fun, or joyful?

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