This evening, a new episode of the podcast This Human Business will come online. The subject of this episode is the development of a new metaphor for business to replace the traditional industrialist mindset that considers business as a kind of machine. What might happen if we were see business as a garden instead?
This morning, however, I have another view of my garden. I am feeling an emotion that was first described to me by one contributor to the podcast, Christine Locher. I am feeling abschiedsschmerz, the emotion of leaving a place when we would prefer to stay.
In my garden, a new generation of tiny minnows has just hatched in the pond, and is darting to the surface, searching for edible bits of this and that which have fallen during the night. On to embankment above the pond, the leaves of the spirea I planted a month ago are turning orange and preparing to fall. Underneath them, a tangle of cucumber vines is bearing fruit, simultaneously spiny and soft, while green beans swell for a late harvest that should be ready by the end of the week.
As I pulled away from my house this morning, the pink anemone pulled at me, a temptation to abandon all thought of leaving. Yet, I must leave, for my village is too small to provide me with work. So, I am about to board a flight to New Jersey.
New Jersey calls itself the Garden State, but I have yet to find a single peaceful flower bed there.
