Both of us are steeped in an-enlightenment-based education, so we cannot stress enough how unnatural this is to us.

Amanda’s PhD is in communication theory; she is trained as a social scientist to observe, to formulate hypotheses, and then to test those hypotheses with statistical observation, computation, and interpretation. Lee is trained as an attorney to use logic, reason, and evidence to defend one argument and attack another. So neither of us was prepared to face what we are beginning to confront now: the baffling, inexplicable, sometimes ineffable mystery of growing things.

The more we learn, the more we learn what we don’t know, but more to the point for today. the more we suspect there are things about what we do that defy knowing. Is it possible that plants have spirits? Why is Lee finding himself listening to them more and more? Are we just becoming foolish in our old age? Or are we slowly and subtly opening ourselves to a reality that has been there all along and that we are just now beginning to experience?

Listen – 19:18

The spirit of Sad Longleaf inspires us and reminds us from where we have come.