Every Rock has a Personality

So much farm land is worked, and reworked and planted and plowed and turned under, sprayed with chemicals and fed with more chemicals, year after year and decade after decade. Did you every wonder if the land gets tired?  I did.

In 1992, I bought a farm in Central Texas, and because I was too busy with my own stuff to question arrangements that had been in place for many years, I allowed MY property to continue to be be farmed. Kind of like the farming arrangement conveyed with the sale of the land.  I forgot to ask just how many years it had been in "cultivation" and what was the process and any other questions that gave me information about its history.  The cultivation kept it in an Agricultural status and that was financially good for me.  We're not talking about a lot of money, but it was a quick fix and I didn't even give it a second thought. I was too busy and it was not important to my future.  Right?  NOT!

Back in 2006, after several taps on the shoulder and thumps on the forehead by the Universe, I got this great idea to check out converting my property to a Wildlife Habitat. A friend of a friend had done it, and I happened to be in the right place at the right time to hear her story and.......................     Well, why not.  Can't be that difficult to do.

I guess over the years, the seeds for "giving back" had begun to grow. Subtly. Guess that is the way I would "get it", and the Universe knew it and didn't push.  And the awareness that it was important to my legacies, be it family or nature community, had also been planted and were beginning to be in the news and on the TV shows I watched.  Imagine that!!  The Universe in charge of the TV remote?

So, that fall, I spent some time on the internet checking out how to convert.  Seemed like a huge mountain to climb, lots of paperwork and meeting with this person in this agency and that one in another agency.  HMMMMMM??  They all had telephone numbers and email addresses.  Okay, let's try it.  Well, they were just people, and that was their job, and they WANTED to help.  How sweet that was.

So after several trips out to my farm by the powers to be, I was on the road to becoming a Wildlife Habitat, Certified, even.  Took over a year, but now, on my plate was going to be mowing,  plowing up the ground to get it prepared to plant the native grass seeds that were part of my new program.  Seemed simple.  I had a tractor and implements and a big imagination.  But what was I going to do with all of this?  I remembered the saying that I had on my kitchen wall-- "a farmer never plowed a field by mulling it over in his head". 

So, I got out my manual to find out how to run the tractor, put implements on and off, and figured out how to plant the seeds.  That took a week and a lot of effort.  However, at every step of the way, things just seemed to fall into place.  Universe?  You bet!!!  However, this was a large job for one person.  Was I up to it? 

The mowing went well. Hot but okay.  Then plowing and then seeding.  Unfortunately, the seeding had to be done by hand, with the wind cooperating by blowing the seeds about 15 feet with every throw.  Sweet. 

But it was at this stage of the process that I started noticing my field stones.  Sparkling quartz, black chert, red jasper and fossils.  Oh my gosh.  I had never noticed before.  And they had been here all the time, waiting for me to finally slow down and look down.  Everywhere I walked or turned was another rock sending out it's energy, reflecting the light from the sun and showing off it's beauty.  It was like I was in another world, blinded by the colors and reflections.  I finally sat down in the middle of the field and started picking them up and holding them and feeling their warmth from the sun. 

Where had they come from? Had they washed down from a riverbed a thousand years ago?  Had they been part of a mountain from another civilization on earth?  Had they ever been touched by a human before?  Had they every seen the light of day before I plowed?  What was the story they could tell?  What kind of energy had they stored up?  If we are all energy anyway, what kind of personality do they have?  What a transformational experience. 

And if this is what I see with my field rocks, what about all the grains of sand in the ocean?  And every rock that washes down a gutter or that is mounted in gold in a ring.  Everything is touched by something else and has a memory of some kind, and has a personality. 

I try to remember that every time I see a rock or grain of sand or ring on someones hand. They are all special with a story and a personality.  Isn't the Universe special!