Legend of the “Three Sisters”
If you are familiar with companion planting, you’ll likely have heard the legend of the Three Sisters garden. This is a traditional Native American method for growing food in a resourceful way. It’s been used for many hundreds of years and is based on the idea that each plant has something vital to offer the others.
In the legend, that trio of plants was represented by three sisters, all of whom were different, yet loved and thrived next to one another. (much like myself and my two sisters!)
These plants grow at different rates; the vegetables harvest at different times. But the mix provides a system of mutual protection and benefit. The tall and the small working together. It’s not just the corn, not just the beans, not just the squash, but rather the combination that yields a healthy crop.
The corn grows tall and creates a natural pole for the bean plants to climb. The beans provide nitrogen, a nutrient that helps the other plants grow more efficiently. And the squash stays low to the ground with its large, spreading leaves helping to block weeds and keep the soil moist.
Michelle Obama shared in The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times about her White House Three Sisters garden. She suggested we could think in these terms about our individual lives as well as our wider human community because our balance rests upon this ideal, the richness of these combinations.
Individually, If we begin to feel out of sync, if we’re feeling unsupported or overwhelmed, we can try to take stock of what our garden holds, what we’ve planted and what we still need to mix in: What’s feeding my soil? What’s helping to block the weeds? Am I cultivating both the small and the tall?
Collectively, we can look at what is currently going on in our world…what we’ve created…as well as what we could choose now to help it grow healthy.
And those small and creative solutions most often come from many individuals working together!
We can do it, you know..!
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Instantly my brain sings, “Oh I get by with a little help from my friends!” 💜
I remind myself that I am really free to be me, without regard to the opinions of others. “I am enough,” as David Walker (former president of Religious Science International) wrote in his book of the same name.