Hi,
I've got a question for you.
What have caterpillars got to do with love?
It's day 10 of my 30-day experiment looking at living from a place of love rather than fear,
And today I've come face-to-face with caterpillars.
They have munched their way through my vegetable plot.
I've been so disappointed at seeing the amount of food that has been ruined because of these pesky caterpillars.
I'm going to tell you a bit more about that in a moment.
First,
Let me remind you of this experiment.
So,
My name is Liz Scott,
And each day for 30 days I am being aware,
Intentional and aware,
About living from a place of love rather than fear.
And that means that any time I find myself lost in uncomfortable or unsettled feelings,
I bring my awareness back to a place of love.
And then I write up what I've learnt in a journal and share the day's learning with you.
Each day I learn something in particular.
Today has been all about love and surrender being one and the same thing.
And like I said,
It's all down to caterpillars.
Let me explain a bit more about the vegetable plot so you can understand what I've learnt today.
So,
Over the past two years,
A friend and I have worked on a vegetable plot in her garden.
She's got a much bigger garden than me,
And it just makes sense that we work together on the plot.
She's really happy that I spend time there.
I enjoy spending time on the plot.
And when one of us is away,
The other can take on responsibilities of watering and looking after the plants.
So it works really,
Really well.
This year has been a really super year for butterflies.
And of course,
What that means is that where you get butterflies,
You get cabbage whites.
And where you get cabbage whites,
You get eggs that have been laid on the vegetables in the vegetable plot.
And that's exactly what's happened.
The vegetable plot has been pretty much decimated.
We noticed it first on the rocket,
Which was absolutely just munched right down to the stems.
And then the kale,
Which is one of my favourite foods.
And I covered it over with a fine mesh,
Hoping to protect it from the butterflies.
But even that mesh didn't keep the butterflies away.
And the caterpillars have got onto the kale and are eating their way through the kale.
When I picked the kale this evening,
And I brought some back to eat,
I knew that there might be a few caterpillars on it.
But it took me four washes to get all the caterpillars off.
And even as I was eating the kale leaves,
I kind of felt a bit squeamish,
Just wondering if maybe I hadn't managed to get all the caterpillars off the kale.
And so I didn't really enjoy eating it.
And I knew then that I couldn't eat any more of the kale this year.
I just needed to let it be lost to the caterpillars and to the butterflies.
And I felt really disappointed.
I guess it's been hard work.
Having a vegetable plot is hard work.
It is an investment in love.
We've put down manure.
We've looked after seedlings.
It's been quite a dry summer.
We've watered and cared for seedlings.
We've put on compost.
We've been weeding it.
We've just been generally looking after the plot.
And of course,
When the pests come in,
It can ruin so many weeks and months of hard work,
Quite literally overnight.
So I was really disappointed.
And at first I felt quite angry that I hadn't managed to protect the kale.
I was angry with myself for not doing it properly.
But I soon realised,
As I brought my awareness back to a place of love,
That the vegetable plot was much more than just growing veg and eating veg.
This is what I learned.
I sort of brought my awareness back to a place of settledness.
And I saw that the plot was about me being out in nature.
It was about me getting my hands in the soil.
It was about me connecting with my neighbour.
It was about me really enjoying being outside.
And the vegetables we ate,
Well,
They were a little side product of all the other enjoyment I was getting.
So when I brought my awareness back to love,
New,
Fresh thinking came through.
Rather than just feeling the anger and disappointment,
I began to realise that the vegetable plot was much more than growing and eating vegetables.
It was about connection with other people,
With my neighbour.
It was about connection with the outdoors.
It was about connection with the soil.
The second thing I've learnt is that I learnt today about surrender.
I quite literally,
After feeling the anger and disappointment,
I quite literally realised with a real sense of calmness that it was time to surrender the vegetable plot for the year to the caterpillars.
So rather than fight it or bemoan it or think that it wasn't fair,
I let go.
And I realised as I let go that this was very much a part of me coming from a place of love.
So today the caterpillars have taught me a couple of things.
They've taught me about letting go,
About surrender,
About allowing things to be.
And they've also enabled me to realise that whilst it looks like the vegetable plot was all about growing veg and eating it,
In actual fact there was love present in the way that I nurtured the veg,
In the way that I connected with my neighbour,
In the way that I lovingly weeded and looked after the vegetables as they grew,
I realised that it wasn't just about the veg,
That love showed up on many levels,
In many ways.
So there we go,
That's what the caterpillars have taught me about love today.
And I'd love to know what you are learning.
What has been the lesson that you have learnt today as you have listened to love rather than fear?
