Cultivate - Be Intentional With What You Are Planting
Jim Maddox, Ph.D.
Faculty at the University of Arkansas | Teaching Organization Development | Inspiring Growth, Challenging Perspectives, and Co-Creating Self-Discovery
Cultivate - Be intentional with what you are planting
Happy Fall!
I really like the word cultivate.?I have found myself using it frequently in my teaching and consulting work.?Even in my personal life I find the term useful. Living in this part of our country, in the farm belt, the term is a familiar one.?In our gardens, we cultivate the soil, we prepare the ground to support what we intend to plant and hope to see grow and flourish.?We plant many types of seeds throughout our lives.
The summer before entering the third grade, my dad retired from the U.S. Navy and we settled in a small town in central Oklahoma. My parents were glad to put down roots after 23 years of nomadic military life and were especially excited to plant a garden. ?My dad grew up in the country, and my mom had an amazing green thumb and her dad was a master gardener.?They had dreamed of this day of having their own big backyard space to grow all sorts of things.?I remember spending hours helping my parents in our giant garden - rototilling, picking out rocks, raking, hoeing, planting, weeding, and watering.?I was not real fond of the burr stickers that seemed to magically appear again and again.?With our garden, I was most excited about the chance to harvest, to pick the cherry tomatoes, the cucumbers, the various melons.?As an adolescent I was by far most interested in eating fresh items right from the backyard!?What seemed like a number of years of having our big garden really only lasted the short span of 3 summers.?The time of the big garden was cut way too short.?My father passed away when I was just 12 and the family garden soon became a memory.?The garden grew over and became our extended ball field, hitting golf balls, and playing endless games of whiffle-ball, on what I would later begin to realize was a type of sacred ground filled with my parents’ hopes and dreams. ?
? Fast forward 40 years to a couple of years ago when we moved our mom out of her home, to an Alzheimer’s facility - we packed up and sorted out 50 years of memories.?
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? In sorting through all the accumulated memories, I found in her kitchen drawer an old, faded spiral notebook.?Inside it contained my parent’s hand drawn garden layouts, the rotation of crops from one summer to the next, detailed descriptions of how much was planted and how much was picked, canned, and/or frozen.?The notebook also contained descriptions of the specific plant varieties and seeds they used.?It became clear to me, how my mom and dad were quite intentional about what they cultivated.?Both in our acreage garden as well as the 5 children they raised.
Can the same be said about our organizations and our relationships??Are we being intentional with what we are planting? Are we establishing the groundwork for change to emerge??For our relationships to have a sound foundation??Cultivation, I believe, is the beginning of transformation and growth. The important factor for me then is how much are we really conscious of what we are cultivating??So often it seems we are on autopilot, not fully aware of our decisions, our choices, or even our actions.?Even more deeply is the intentions behind our behaviors.?Cultivation and intentionality go hand-in-hand.?
?So, as we move into Fall, think of what you have recently been planting this past year.?Consider what you are cultivating longer term.?Consider what you are preparing to harvest in your life.?What do you plan to grow and nurture??Because the old adage is true, we do reap what we sow.?What will be in your garden notebook when other’s look back on your life??So be intentional with what you are planting.??Cultivate mindfully. Cultivate your life. Cultivate your organizations.?
Have a great weekend! ?