What the olive trees are teaching me
I cannot speak for the trees, but I can speak to how they move me.
When I close my eyes at night, I often see olive leaves. Branches intertwined and coming from all angles, their grey-green colour calling me.
I like to think that this is the trees' way of speaking to me – that there is an imprinting process happening, a non-cerebral absorption of olive tree essence that is being infused into my knowing.
As many of you will know, my husband and I purchased an olive grove earlier this year. There are 500 trees which are 30 years old, overgrown and bug-ridden sprawled over 20 acres on Dja Dja Wurrung Country in Central Victoria.
In many ways, being thrust into part-time farming has felt like finding my life's calling. The angsty teen who was forever trying to figure out 'what I wanted to be when I grew up' never had olive keeper on her list, but she did draw a lot of pictures of vegetables. Go figure?
We settled on this land a week before we got married (romantic pics taken on the grove before the ceremony below) and once the post-wedding haze was over, we got stuck into pruning the trees. Six months later, with calloused hands and a new "hard pruning strategy", we are still going.
Everyone we speak to says "olive trees are very resilient". There is a reason why they grow to thousands of years old and are known for their healing qualities. There is an ancientness to their ancestry, with evidence showing they were cultivated on Crete as early as 2500 BC. Olives and thier oil are mentioned in the bible nearly 200 times. The olive branch is the symbol of peace. Its medicinal properties are said to be regenerative.
Once established, an olive tree is very very hard to kill. Our trees are standing tall and proud after surviving rabbits, a big fire about 20 years ago, five years of neglect and now an infestation of the dreaded olive lace bug.
They are resilient, but not invincible. They still need nutrients, custodianship and PRUNING.
Due to a combination of (1) running out of time (2) managing The Bug and (3) wanting to keep sane / our marriage in tact, we are now stripping the trees of all their leaves, leaving naked trunks with a few branches reaching out. It's quite a sight to see.
There's a sadness at pruning these trees so hard. Some of the trunks we are cutting are 20 years old and I find myself whispering to them, honouring their time and their wisdom
"What growth you've achieved. What fruit you've produced. Thank you for your years of service."
It's a weird thing, playing god to the fate of these limbs. Sometimes I walk along the rows with my chainsaw or loppers, feeling like the grim reaper with power to take life in an instant.
I never thought custodianship would mean so much death.
I've tried to reconcile the loss. Perhaps losing a limb is like moving from a childhood home. Or breaking up a five year relationship. Or leaving a job after years of investing your creativity.
It's natural to lose things after a lifetime of living with them.
As the trees so bravely put their energy into limbs, us humans so bravely put our energy into things – with no guarantees of everlasting or control.
Loss is such an omnipresent reality. I don't think it's acknowledged enough; all of these little griefs. Every decision we make means we are not choosing others. When we say yes to one thing (the job, the house, the city, the person), we are saying no to many more things. Even if we are sure of the yes, there can still be complex feelings about what we are leaving behind. There can be safety in complexity, indecision, or waiting. I take comfort in knowing I can rest here.
Making decisions is a courageous part of life. And there is a kooky irony when life decisions involve a chainsaw and death.
With my regenerative lens on, I know this is death only of its current form. The prunings will become mulch, and some the trunks will hopefully find their way into spoon carvers hands. This is an end. And the start of a new life. They will literally become the soil for new life. Or the spoons that feed us food to keep us alive. Or food for a friends goats.
This much death, in service to life, is still a bit discombobulating. Parts of me are still wired with capitalism's endless growth mindset, and I can't quite compute that this much pruning, this much death – even when it is in service to mulch and future food and compost – actually helps there be greater health, more growth, more life in the future.
I have been guaranteed that these trees will bounce back with a bushy ball of grey-green foliage by the end of the year. Life, death, life. Life, rest, life. The cycle of regeneration.
I know the regenerative formula, and I've experienced the equation work, but I'm still trying to understand the math behind it. Because regeneration is science. It's poetic and sexy and liberating – and it's also based on chemistry and alchemy and is highly logical.
And oh my, does that hit my sweet spot. When poetry and logic come together: I could die from happiness. (Die from happiness: is that another layer of regeneration unlocked?)
I am a big believer in the saying "We teach what we need to learn" (thank you Dan Hoffman for this wisdom). Perhaps this is why I have co-founded a business called The Regenerative Leader with Marike Knight and Hayley Morris. Launching next month, we guide new and restorative ways of leading teams and businesses.
This business venture is as much for myself as it is the world (perhaps this is also why I teach Business as Soulwork). I believe regeneration of the health and vitality of people and the planet is the greatest imperative of our time. There is a yearning in me to be immersed with the essence of regeneration, which I guess has manifested itself in being surrounded by 500 olive trees, covered in chainsaw woodchips and finding olive leaves in all my pockets.
The reality is that I cannot escape regeneration – it’s happening within me and around me and without me having to try. It’s a reminder for me to let go and follow the natural cycles.
A BIG THANK YOU to all the people who have come to help us prune over the past six months. We have learnt, laughed and embodied the “no wrong cuts” rule together in very nourishing and regenerative ways.
The moon cycled around fast this past month. A symptom of my own movement and fullness in life at the moment. For those newer to these Life Reflections, I send them out every month on the minute the moon is 100% full. I chose this cadence as a way to keep connected with the bigger cycles of Nature, and remind me, that I am Nature too.
If you are a business owner or leader who is interested in Business as Soulwork, you can learn more about it here. This is an intimate deep dive over six months that fuses the purpose and growth of your business, with the unique callings of your soul. Meeting fortnightly over 12 sessions, this journey is built on the premise that our business goals, life dreams and visions for the world are akin to the soul speaking the lessons it wants to learn. It’s equal parts strategy and flow; practical and personal.