#compost heap

[jillraggett]

Plant of the Day

Tuesday 31 October 2023

The large compost heaps at Great Dixter, East Sussex, UK, formed an excellent growing area for pumpkins (Cucurbita pepo) and gourds. These tender annual plants thrive on the humus rich heaps being warmed by the heat of the decomposition.

Jill Raggett

[jonasgoonface]

drew my dudes again

[sororalice]

On The Blessedness Of The Compost Heap

A homily for the New Moon on August 4, 2024.

Dearly Beloved,

A very blessed New Moon to all of you! This month we have a very fiery New Moon, with both the Sun and the Moon in the second decanate of Leo, and given this most fixed of elemental Fire, I am moved to speak on the mystery of death and life, I am moved to speak of rot and growth…I am moved to speak upon the warmth of the compost heap.

I must admit that the poet within me comes to the fore in these moments. While I take my pastoral duties very seriously and deeply believe in the value of both the reading and writing of homilies for those living the spiritual life, my topics come from the deep resonances I feel with the changes always occurring within the natural world. I am a pagan through and through and, as such, I see the Divine in the processes and features of nature, Their holy will expressed in literally every particle, every wave, and, yes, in the beauty of the compost heap, in the luscious decay, warmth, and life created within a pile of rotting organic matter. This is what I see when I look at the world, and what I see inspires me endlessly.

Countless living beings, every one of them hungry and eager to express their instincts to live and grow, make their happy home within the compost pile. The heat created by all of this teeming life can build to such an intensity that the pile can begin to smolder and even (rarely) burst into flame. The nutrients created by all of this life can then go on to give rise to even more life in the form of the fruits and vegetables that will go on to nurture humans and other animals.

And all of this amazing life that will give rise to even more amazing life? Every bit of it came from death. It all came from the endings that had to occur so that we could have new beginnings. Every bit of life that exists now can only thrive and grow because other bits of life died. The past dies to make fertile soil for the future.

And this is the secret, the lesson, of the New Moon. Every month we go through the cycle…the Moon grows fat, waxing in light and beauty as our possibilities for that month ripen into actualities. Those possibilities grow and we grow with them, only to reach a crescendo as the Moon grows full. Then the waning of the light begins and we are compelled by our bones and our blood to look within, to the things in our life that have to die and fall away to make fertile soil for the growth of the next cycle.

That is what this moment, the New Moon, is all about. Our old actualities have to fall away so that our new possibilities can take root. Life, like the Moon, is in shadow, hiding away in the dark. But in that shadow grows new possibilities, teeming and warm, thriving in the dark.

We can thrive there, too.

Blessed New Moon.

In love,

Soror Alice

Art: Abraham Mignon, “Still Life With Rotting Fruit And Nuts On A Stone Ledge”, (~1670)

[petermorwood]

Early writing or bad writing is a compost heap - which, NB, is not an insult.

This compost heap may well contain an idea seed which blossoms unexpectedly later on.

It might also contain material which, left to its own devices for however long, can be excavated to enrich other writing further down the line.

Nearly every writer is aware of at least one good phrase, written long before, which much later turned out to be Just The Thing.

(If all of the above suggests I've been doing some actual gardening before October closes in, you'd be right.)

Reverting to one of my more usual foodie analogies, the History of Worcestershire Sauce is equally appropriate - indeed even more so, since it's a Creation Myth, and a couple of details are apparently outright fiction.

Whether compost, sauce composition or a file folder of not-very-satisfactory writing, the basic advice remains sound:

Throw Nothing Out, Because You Never Know.

:->

The best advice really is to just write. Write badly - purple prose, stilted conversations, rambling descriptions. Don't delete it, pass go, take your $200, save all your garbage in a big folder. Look at how much you've made - it doesn't matter if it isn't perfect, isn't polished, it was practice. Every time you write you learn a little more, and find another piece of your voice.

[egophiliac]

IMPORTANT QUESTION

My friends and I have started calling you the irl version of Lilia and we wished to know if you can cook because we are worried for the home if you cannot

(This is a light hearted joke)

I can (more or less) follow a recipe, which gives me the advantage! >:D ...although it is true then when left to my own devices I default to "dump in a bunch of random spices and see what happens". I...I just really like cayenne and turmeric okay --

other than that (and all the other many things that are different about us) Lilia and I are, y'know, basically identical.

[materassassino]

Sometimes I see fanfics about Booker as I make my way through the tag that make me laugh, because it is abundantly clear that the writer and I see Booker in such a fundamentally different way it's like magnets repelling each other. Somehow you looked at this sad and greasy Frenchman and thought "that's hot" instead of "that's like a cheap defrosted frozen pizza".

(This post is brought to you by the harrowing fact I had to read the oxymoron "Courtesan Booker" with my own two eyes and BSODed)

[ell-arts]

Spiral: There's nothing quite like coming home to your mother's cooking. Pac: Can't relate. Cyli: Same. Spiral: Okay, Pac I can understand, but why can't YOU relate? Cyli: *shudders* My mom is a terrible cook...

[dendrilart]

[thedemonscrawler]

i have a folder on my phone for WIPs, and it is endlessly amusing to me how one of the files is cut off

[monstriiss]

who will give drath something salty and crunchy to eat so she can make the scrunchy crunchy face—

[cantankerouscatfish]

a fierce hunter! violence incarnate!!

computer... enhance.

it's a lacewing larva. :3 with an aphid snack.

[canisvesperus]

Do any of you freaks love maggots or is it just me out here

[kingcharley17]

NQD characters as flowers I saw at a National Trust Garden but I don't say who I'm thinking of nor why.

All pictures are by me and my inner goblin, the reason my phone had 11000 photos on it.

[sudden-biscuit-attack]

Spent a nice free afternoon indulging in whimsy and playing with flowers

[ekingston]

For the WiP word ask: wished

i cheated for you because none of my stuff is in the past tense but YES:

[macabrity]

PLEASE ANSWER MY EMAIL I WANT YOU SO BAD