Leisha Living Ground… and my legal initials are LG too
Living Ground, Teach Me
Living Ground, teach me quiet as the soil rests beneath the morning light, holding seeds in patient darkness until sun and rain call them to rise. Many mornings I step outside before anyone else is awake and walk through the garden paths while the valley is still wrapped in mist. In that early silence I feel both small and deeply held, as if the land itself is reminding me to breathe and keep walking forward.
Living Ground, teach me humility as the smallest microbes labor beneath our feet, building the living foundation from which gardens, forests, and people draw their strength. When I first began learning about the invisible life in soil, it changed the way I saw everything. Entire worlds were thriving beneath my boots, doing their work without praise or recognition, and I realized that much of what truly sustains life happens quietly and out of sight.
Living Ground, teach me gratitude as every fallen leaf returns to the earth and slowly becomes nourishment for the life that follows. When we sweep the leaves from the garden paths and carry them to the compost piles, I often stop and watch the process unfolding. What looks like an ending slowly becomes the beginning of something new.
Living Ground, teach me patience as fruit trees grow through the years, slowly turning light, water, and soil into sweetness. I have planted trees here knowing that some of their finest harvests may come long after I am gone. Still I plant them, because planting a tree is a promise made to the future.
Living Ground, teach me cooperation as roots and soil life exchange their gifts beneath the surface, showing how life flourishes through relationship. In the garden beds I sometimes lift the mulch and see delicate threads of fungal life weaving through the soil, connecting plants to one another. It reminds me that strength is rarely solitary.
Living Ground, teach me resilience as the mountain soil holds firm through wind and rain, trusting the quiet strength placed within creation. There are days when my own body feels like it is walking through its own season of weather, and in those moments I look to the land around me and remember that life has always known how to endure.
Living Ground, teach me wonder as birds, insects, plants, fungi, and people share the same living world, each playing a small but necessary part. Some afternoons the garden hums with bees, butterflies drift across the beds, and people move quietly among the plants. In those moments it feels like a living orchestra where every voice matters.
Living Ground, teach me trust as seeds disappear into darkness before reaching toward the light. Each time I plant a seed I am reminded that much of life’s most important work happens in places we cannot see.
Living Ground, teach me reverence as I place my hands in the soil, remembering that the same Creator who shaped the mountains also shaped the life beneath every grain of earth. Sometimes I kneel to plant and pause with my hands resting in the soil, feeling the cool life of the ground beneath my palms, and I am filled with a quiet sense that this world is sacred.
Living Ground, teach me courage as I walk through a season where the future feels less certain than it once did. Each day I do what I can to care for this body, to keep working, to keep planting, and to keep believing that life still has more chapters waiting to unfold.
Living Ground, teach me acceptance as I grow older and understand that none of us are here forever, that we are visitors in this beautiful place for a brief and meaningful time. The mountains around this valley have stood for ages, and their presence reminds me to live my days with intention.
Living Ground, teach me purpose as I care for this small piece of land and the small community gathered around it. What happens here may seem small in the grand scale of the world, yet I believe even a small garden can send ripples outward.
Living Ground, teach me tenderness for the generations that follow. Somewhere ahead of me is a young life I hope to know better, a small person who carries part of my story forward. I wish to pass along what I have learned from soil, plants, and faith, trusting that wisdom travels its own path and arrives where it is meant to land.
Living Ground, teach me hope as every seed planted becomes an act of faith. Even when the outcome is uncertain, I plant, I tend, and I trust that the quiet work done here in this small place may still matter long after my footsteps have faded from the paths.
LG
