Leisha When I find myself in the middle of a problem, it can feel enormous. An unexpected bill arrives or a wall suddenly needs repair; the heavy rain, the soil slips and the reminder that the land still moves in its own way; a project takes longer than I planned or someone misunderstands something I said; a day that began with excitement slowly ends in exhaustion; or the realization that my body and mind is tired.
In those moments it is easy to believe that the problem in front of me has become the center of everything. But when I step back and widen the view, the picture changes.
The Stoics practiced something they called the view from above. Marcus Aurelius would imagine rising higher and higher in his mind until he could see his life from a distance. From that height he could see cities, farms, families, celebrations, arguments, births, and deaths, all unfolding at once in the vast movement of human life.
Sometimes I try to do the same with Living Ground.
When I step outside the moment and look more broadly, I see the gardens instead of the single problem. I see the beds of herbs growing quietly, the compost piles turning kitchen scraps into soil, and the fruit trees slowly stretching higher each season. I see the café where people gather around a table and share a meal. I see the hostel rooms where travelers rest after long journeys. I see the team moving through the day carrying tools, learning new skills, and building something together.
Then I imagine rising even higher.
I see the valley in southern Ecuador where mountains fold into one another like green waves. I see farms, rivers, and winding roads. I see the clouds that gather in the afternoon and release rain that feeds the soil beneath our feet.
From that height the problems that once felt overwhelming begin to shrink. They do not disappear, but they become one small thread in a much larger story.
We attach ourselves to every passing moment. A mistake becomes a verdict about who we are. A criticism becomes a wound we replay in our minds. A delay feels like failure. The mind begins rehearsing conversations that never actually happen, creating arguments that exist only inside our own thoughts. I have done this more times than I care to admit.
Yet when I step back and see the wider landscape, something softens. I remember why this place exists in the first place.
Living Ground was never meant to be perfect. It was meant to be alive. Soil is messy. Gardens fail and recover. Plants die and return in another season. Compost only becomes rich because things first fall apart.
The same is true for people and my personal life.
The view from above does not minimize life. Instead, it offers freedom from unnecessary suffering created inside our own thoughts. I feel this perspective more strongly now than I once did.
There is a quiet awareness that time is not endless. My body reminds me of that in subtle ways, often late at night when the house becomes quiet and the day finally slows. Something inside me is changing, asking for attention and patience. It has altered the way I see things.
I still wake each morning with determination. I continue working in the garden, cooking meals, writing, planning, and building. In some ways I am doing more than ever before. But the lens through which I see life has widened. I understand more clearly that none of us are promised unlimited tomorrows.
Strangely, that awareness does not make life smaller. It makes life brighter.
When I rise high enough in my imagination, I can see the brief span of a human life. A few decades appearing for a moment in the vast stretch of time before us and the equally vast stretch that will come after.
I understand that feeling more deeply now.
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
