Compost as Metaphor

I recently picked some blooming herbs from my yard and enjoyed it as a bouquet on the table for a while. When it was time to remove it, Autumn, who is almost 5, asked "Grandma, are you going to throw it in the trash?" When I told her I was going to put it on the compost pile she wanted to know what that was. Aha! Teachable moment! We went to the backyard and I showed her the bins behind the garden shed where I accumulate plant material. Then we got down on our knees and I opened the little door at the bottom and explained that the plants eventually fall apart and become the black crumbly stuff we find at the bottom that we scoop out and put on the garden for food for new plants. She examined it closely then looked up at me wide eyed and said, "Its like magic isn't it!" I have to agree, compost is a beautiful, magical thing. Magic that is helped along by some planning and diligent work. We can learn a lot about sustainability here. Sustainability doesn't mean keeping things unchanged, but changing with grace. Maintaining the ability to transform when changes come in our physical, social, and economic environment.

As this group seeks to examine our history so we can take the best of our past with us into the future we can learn a lot from the messy, but magical compost pile.

1. Composting is a key component of sustainable agriculture. It is a process that cycles so-called waste back into the system to provide raw material for new growth.
   • A sustainable organization is one that adapts to changes by bringing the best of their past experiences with them into the future, not intact, but as components of a new configuration.
2. What is refuse at one time in the garden will be incorporated into the next season's prize produce.
   • Actions and information that don't appear as a desirable output in an organization at one time may provide key materials for the creation of a new "output" in a new time.
3. When you throw away (say, send it to the landfill) your garden refuse you have to replenish the soil from somewhere else, at more "expense" and often with less effectiveness. The garden may eventually become unproductive from the inability to adapt to these inputs.
   • When an organization "throws away" past experiences by calling them failures they are cheating themselves from valuable growth enhancing elements. There is something that is going right in every organization. What was going right, even in a seemingly unproductive or negative situation? Resilience, nurturing, resourcefulness, compassion, affirmation? These are the "elements" that carry on to new growth situations. Track down what was positive and amplify and encourage it. Choosing to not identify and increase your strengths will stunt or sabotage growth.
4. You have to mix high nitrogen (new green stuff) with high carbon (old, brown stuff) in the right proportions for effective decomposition, and you need considerably more old stuff than new stuff.
   • Experience and innovation both play a part in the mix of good ideas. Everyone's ideas, resources, and knowledge are vital.
   • New ideas are sometimes seen as destroying or replacing old ones. However, a little innovation mixed into a lot of experience can produce a new burst of activity that incorporates them both.
5. When you turn the compost pile and let oxygen in, the decomposition process happens much faster.
   • For an organization to gain the most benefit from the past things must be examined incorporating the "fresh air" of honesty, respect, and compassion.
   • The process of examination is about both discovering and shaping "what is". The process as well as the end goal is the pay off.
   • Negative or difficult tings are not avoided but re-spected" (looked at again), to see what was going right in that process rather than focusing on what was going wrong. What "elements" were there that we can carry on to new growth situations? We, as a group and as individuals, need to be willing to "tell ourselves a different truth", or be able to see things in a new way.
   • This "mixing" process also ensures an exchange of information so everyone knows what is going on.
6. If you put non-plant material in the compost pile it can rot and stink and attract rats.
   • Relying too heavily on the experiences of other groups that are not relevant to your group can stink up the process. Find the solution for you, not someone else's solution.
7. The moisture content has to be within a tolerable range. Not a lot, but a steady supply
   • Someone once said "I don't need a lot of love, I just need a steady supply." For groups to work effectively there needs to be a steady supply of compassion, "no unnecessary value judgements".
8. The decomposition process creates heat, but this heat also kills weed seeds.
   • In reexamining past events anger or conflict may surface. Anger is about loss. Real or perceived, current or anticipated. Seek to recognize what was lost and understand the grieving process at work. We can find ways to cherish and celebrate the value of value these things to keep them from robbing the group of the resources needed to grow and produce benefits.
9. Weeds are a beneficial addition to the compost mix because they often send roots down to a different level in the soil and bring up nutrients from that level.
   • Conflicts in a group are an opportunity to turn our attention to unexamined areas and bring up resources from a depth we may not be used to visiting.
10. You cannot prevent decomposition it is one of the laws of mature. It may happen ever so slowly, over eons, but it will happen.
    • Ideas evolve, processes change, people die, mountains erode, even the sun will die.
    • We usually try to prevent the change because we fear the sense of loss it will bring. However, when we try to prevent change it requires increasingly more effort and resources until eventually the system will disintegrate and change will come with greater force and collateral damage than would have occurred from letting things take their course.
11. Last year's compost feeds this year's crops.
    • The me of today is part of the you of yesterday. I am who/what I am today because of things that have gone on here before it shapes me and nourishes me and moves on through me, touching me as it passes (informing and identifying) and moves on through the universe, one transformation at a time, ad infinitum.