The Joy of Connecting
I spend a lot of time in our Community Pollinator Habitat gardens—as in, many hours per week. I admit to being head-over-heels in love with native plants and their interactions with the magical, bejeweled, fuzzy pollinators. Seeing a bumble bee dive into a pollen-laden blossom and come out, pockets stuffed with bright yellow groceries for the fam—that just lights me up! More than that, it’s what drives me, day in and out.
“Hellstrip” gardening team. Photo credit @ Andrea Montoya.
However, there is another aspect to this building of habitat spaces that is blowing me away and filling me up. An interaction that is potent and beautiful—it is the interchange between the community members who come out to partake in the effort of keeping these spaces healthy and functioning—watered, weeded, and tended to.
As the volunteers interact with the plants, the plants connect the volunteers to each other and I get to see their joy. “We don’t talk about The Joy enough,” said Sandy Hockenbury, a Pollinator Advocate (PA) who just completed the inaugural session of PA training as part of our Pollinator Advocate program.
When she said this her face lit up, her voice became a bit urgent as though she couldn’t emphasize it passionately enough: “This work brings us joy, it makes us happy, we need to tell other people about this.”
And she’s right!! Being a Pollinator Advocate is so much more than learning the botanical plant and native bee names, or which plants tolerate sun or shade…there’s so much more.
Every week, I watch as folks greet each other as easy friends, known acquaintances, or welcoming in a newcomer with open arms and encouragement. Some have been coming for a few years, others are recently joining in as trained PA’s, but no matter who it is, they show up and share their stories, concerns, and desires to learn more. And they literally spill over with kindness and smiles.
We laugh at the mistakes we’ve made. I, for example, recently carefully planted a scrawny cleome only to pull it two days later thinking it was a weed. Someone will tell a story of the glory of a new plant that they’ve recently added to their garden; and there is always a story about some cute insect or gorgeous butterfly… “Oh, and have you seen that hummingbird with the red throat—what is that one called?” When someone answers, we all laugh.
There will inevitably be a couple of folks who pair up and conquer the transplanting of the dwarf rabbitbrush, huddled over in serious effort or transplanting the Echinacea that has to be moved because it needs more sun…..and when we add new plants, everyone gathers around to watch it happen and ooh and awe like we’re seeing a cuddly newborn kitten being born. It’s a bit crazy, I admit, but oh so fun.
All kidding aside—feeling a sense of community through feeling a sense of tending to our earth is no small thing. It is big. It is really big!!
I am very, very lucky to have a front row seat to this sacred joy and human bonding that blossoms from people joining in the simple act of placing one’s hands in the soil—together.
I love this photo of Emma Gomez Martinez and her family, at the opening of the Community Pollinator Garden at Emma Gomez Martinez Park.
