sowing for strangers

For the last time, I wander through the food forest at my elder's place. We're moving out and It’s our last day here.

The bamboo I planted many years ago catches my eye. It was planted as construction wood and for the first time, it send up a single thick new shoot — strong, as wide as child's wrist.

A feeling of sadness comes over me, realising we are leaving the forest behind now it is truly beginning to flourish, to produce. It feels like a loss.

We have spent so much time here — with volunteers, friends, with my parents — planting every tree, every shrub.

Transforming that initial flat grazing field into a lush forest took time, it grows slowly. And it’s only after years that you start to see the literal fruits of your early investments.

When the horizon of reward gets pushed years and years ahead, the motivation to even begin can disappear. When you know before hand that the fruits of your efforts will not be yours, many will not even think to start.

But to do put in effort to make things better, even if you’re not the one to benefit. To do so because it aligns with the kind of person you choose to be.

To leave something better than you found it.

That your presence, wherever it lands, improves things — even if it’s subtle, even if no one notices.

In a world that doesn’t operate that way, it can feel draining to give or nurture the things around you. You feel like you’re pouring your energy into a system that just consumes without it ever coming back to you in one way or another.

If you do land in a world where everyone lives to nurture the things around them — You feel enriched, everywhere you go.

And that’s what, to my surprise, happened to me.

I left the food forest at my elder’s place. The swimming pond.
The coppice woods.
The permaculture gardens.
The food forest.
The water storage systems.
The solar setup.
Everything we planted and built.

And now I find myself in a different place. A place I didn’t cultivate, where I did not contribute. But it already has a garden. It has trees and shrubs, a pond, fruits and flowers. It’s rich — and I’m receiving the richness without having put anything into it.

And that’s a beautiful.

If everyone contributes, If everyone plants, cultivates, tends — Then you’re far more likely to end up somewhere that has already been cared for. It's not about linear and direct transactional compensation for your efforts or contributions. But the idea that you will arrive at beauty and richness as everyone is continually sowing, for strangers.