Narrated Essay: When to Plant Clover

In summer, each day invited us to expand. We followed the impulse to flower and yield; to stretch out, romp, and move; to say yes to every invitation.

But in September, the imagination begins to shift. Mornings and evenings are laden with the scent of change. And as our fidelities grow more modest—sharpening our pencils, organizing our closets and calendars—our attention gathers in the nearer world.

As a student of the migration of light for many years, I’ve come to trust the seasonality of practice. In the garden, not every task belongs to every season. There is a time to plant, a time to tend, and a time to harvest. There are pruning seasons and fallow seasons, too—intervals in which we make room for the conditions from which new life can grow.

These inward times may not look like much from the outside, but they are essential, making release and regeneration possible. Our nervous systems and psyches are made for this: breath, reflection, reciprocity, return, creative discipline. The metabolic gestures of a real life.

For his recent birthday, my son received a tiny terracotta pot with a few clover seeds in a paper package. He planted them in soil and sprinkled a few drops of water each day—and within a week, small, green, faithful sprouts appeared.

Sometimes, we must sprinkle water over soil and wait. Sometimes, we must watch and learn to pray. Sometimes, we must cover the field with clover and let it rest. We must rest. This, too, is a practice.

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“We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. ... We have been wrong. We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us. . . We must recover the sense of the majesty of the creation and the ability to be worshipful in its presence. For it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it.” - Wendell Berry, “The Long-Legged House”

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This season, I find myself turning toward what most anchors my attention: my children, and the privilege of accompanying them in their little worlds; my work as a psychotherapist, teacher, and fellow human; and the teachings that sustain and quietly elucidate my days. The work I care most about depends on these forms of nearness.

At a moment when the internet is increasingly organized to reproduce itself—when generated material arrives in ever-greater volume, and we find ourselves questioni