Forever Changing

We converted an old, worn out sensory table into a worm bin that lived adjacent to our playground garden.

I began by drilling holes in the bottom so it could drain, then filled it with soil, from a previous garden that had been left to fend for itself for years, maybe decades. A variety of weeds had taken root, native plants hearty enough to survive in our urban setting. The children had already discovered that there were earthworms aplenty, so we filled our aspiring bin one afternoon with spadefuls of dirt, stems, leaves, roots, and worms. 

The worms weren't having it. Within hours they were dangling from the bottom of the table, making their escape from the holes I'd drilled in the bottom. They had found themselves in the wrong ecological niche. Earthworms have evolved to dig in all directions, including vertically. The shallow bin was simply the wrong habitat and they took matters into their own hands (so to speak) by returning to where they belong. 

This is when we learned that what we wanted were red wigglers, which are a compost-dwelling type of worm. Once we introduced a handful of those (donated from one of our families' compost piles), we never had to add another worm on our own. For nearly two decades, from those original worms, we managed to maintain a thriving population in that tiny space, through a move, many freezes, flooding, neglect, and, most impressively, the constant intrusion of curious children. We had obviously created a place in which they could thrive.

Our worm bin was a place of constant change. In early November, for instance, we would toss our rotting Jack-o-lanterns in there, already growing beards of mold, then observe, and actively participate in, their decomposition. We added leaves, apple cores, paper napkins, wood chips, and all kinds of other organic matter (and some not so organic matter), then, day-after-day let the worms and various microbes do the work of manufacturing soil. Occasionally, we would use some of the compost in our garden beds, but mostly it was a kind of laboratory in which we studied the slow, steady process of earth creating itself by transforming one thing into another.

In her novel, The Parable of the Sower, Octavia Bulter's protagonist, Lauren Olamina, creates a spiritual belief system she calls Earthseed:

All that you touch You Change.

All the you Change Changes you.

The only lasting truth is Change.

God is Change.

Some change is sudden, of course, like a move from one house to another or switching to a new school. I imagine it was quite a surprise to those earthworms to suddenly find themselves bin-bound. But most change is like the changes that occurred in our worm bin, incremental, day-by-day, happening right under our eyes, fingers, and feet. The children themselves are growing, transforming at every moment; we ourselves are changing, adapting to the changes around us. We change right up until the day we die, and beyond, our bodies, like those Jack-o-Lanterns, returning to the soil.

I know too many adults for whom change is something to fear, who gird themselves against it. They fight aging, they rage against social or cultural progress, they fear that every new technology is a harbinger of doom. They seek to steer or stop it, hearkening back to the "good old days," shaking their heads over "kids these days." And they're not entirely wrong. Change always begins with the death of something, often something treasured, something precious, something we cannot quite imagine life without.

“The old world is dying," writes Fiamma Montezemolo, "The new one is slow in appearing. In this light and shadow, monsters arise.” And those monsters are both real and imagined, even as we, living, as we must, in the present, cannot possibly distinguish between the two. Even a casual review of history tells us that change is always a blessing and a curse for something or someone. The fossil record is a record that tells us that well over 99 percent of every species of life that has ever existed is extinct. So yes, some of the monsters are real.

For our youngest citizens, however, there is no "old" world. They live in the ever-emerging present, part of the world being born, with no foot in either the past or the future. Their only motive is to be a part of it, to grow, to learn, to connect (i.e., to change) and to explore their world as agents of change.

In her novel Eva Trout, Elizabeth Bowen introduces a child by what he has done while the adults fretted over their uncertain future: "The boy straightway tipped his handfuls of treasure on to the rug at Eva’s feet, then crouched down, absorbedly starting to sort things out — half of a mangled teaspoon, a minute wheel off some minute toy, the crushed empty shell of some wild bird’s speckled egg, three or four slivers of splintered mirror, particles of Woolworth willow pattern, flower-pots, Crown Derby and, not least, one orange wooden button. Could his hands have held more, more would have been deployed. What there was, he was making into a pattern."

This is what children have always done and continue to do when we are busy looking the other way. They collect the parts of the world that is dying, the loose parts, and play with them, making new patterns, inventing new things, actively participating in the holy work of change. They dig their fingers into the soil to help the worms transform what is into what will be. We adults would do well to join them more often with no other goal in mind than to live.

"Accept the images that God has provided," Butler writes through the eyes of her young protagonist, "They are everywhere, in everything. God is Change— Seed to tree, tree to forest; Rain to river, river to sea; Grubs to bees, bees to swarm. From one, many; from many, one; Forever uniting, growing, dissolving— forever Changing. The universe is God's self-portrait."

******

Books have a way of transforming us unlike any other media out there. Be it fiction or non-fiction, a books has the power to fully immerse us into a world in ways that makes us come out the other side a changed -- and better -- person. I've put together this list of 16 books that have done that for me. They are intentionally not early childhood books, although each one has, in one way or another, profoundly transformed my work with young children. Maybe you'll find a few new ones here that will do the same for you. To download the list, click here.

I put a lot of time and effort into this blog. If you'd like to support me please consider a small contribution to the cause. Thank you!