Tim Herd

See this old cultivator?

It was my dad’s, and I think it was his dad’s. And it may have even been his dad’s before him.

Now it’s mine, and it still works. I used it just today in planting my garden.

One of my early memories from the farm involved that old cultivator. And while I wish I had a picture of it from that time, I still can replay the episode from memory: The ground was hard to break up, and shale-y.  My dad wrestled and pushed the contraption from the back end, trying to engage its three little tines below the surface. Tied around its wooden frame was a used-up old rope that connected, dogsled-style, to me, my older sister, and my mom out there in the lead, as we yanked and stumbled ahead. Mush!

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Today’s vernal equinox briefly bathes the planet in equal amounts of daylight and darkness. And with the shift (in the northern hemisphere) from dark dormancy into animated ambience surges an inner revival for growth and development.

In response to greater sunlight, internal pressures in the trees commence the rising of nutrient-laden sap from storage in the roots upward to fuel the new season’s growth spurt in the twigs.

Biologically, this is an ongoing riot of chemical reactions, motivity mechanisms, physiological changes, and vital exchanges with external resources that together produce the unfolding of buds and leaves, the development and ripening of its fruit, and all eventual successive generations.

It’s time for a growth check. Back yourself up against the wall or doorway—like you may have as an eager youngster—and inscribe a new level against your previous benchmark. What progress have you made since you last checked?

Psychologically, personal growth and development is a direct response to the amount of time spent in the light of new knowledge, building the internal pressure necessary to generate changes in our thinking, actions, and vital interactions with our external resources—that together produce the eruptions of newly developed talents, blossoming of new skills, a maturing of virtues, and an enduring impact on future generations.

Heed this brief missive of springtime revival from the woodlands. What possibilities are you growing?

Two men given a special gift;
To know the date of their own lives’ ending;
Free will in hand, their destinies shaping;
Legacies revealed in their own lives’ making.

“No fear in a life of adventure!” said one.
To live and to know what I do doesn’t matter!
I can booze and snort and shack up with women,
Cut loose and drive fast and live big and get high!
Life’s mine! I take it! I make it!” he boasted—
“To get what I want and to want what I get!”

Two men given a special gift;
One cries “Power!” and makes Self Master;
Free will in hand, his destiny shaping;
Legacy revealed in his own life’s making.

“No fear in a life of adventure!” said the next.
To live and to know what I do does matter!
I can serve and bless and raise up the standard.
Be real and grow tall and live right and aim high!
Life’s fine! I hold it! I mold it!” he marveled—
“To get what I want and to want what I get!”

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There are conflicting stories about the precise heritage of my 7th-great grandfather, Augustin, a protestant minister born in 1661 in Germany. One claims he was rightful heir to an ancient well-known noble lineage; the other alleges he was the grandson of a common miller and an aristocratic pretender. Neither can be conclusively substantiated because the Thirty Years’ War, which ultimately and messily involved most of Europe, has permanently muddled the records. But no matter: either way, his story remains fascinating.

Whether he was of well-to-do birth or not, Augustin did marry well—to the youngest daughter of the Danish Count of Waldeck and Pyrmont, and began climbing the social ladder. And in the passions and patterns of the day, they settled down to raise a large family. At first, because of the warring French, they were forced to flee with their young children several times to new cities of refuge. In Vacha, while serving in a promising position in the Reformed Hessian Church, and soon after the birth of his sixth child, the preacher also fathered a girl born to the neighboring farm maid—thus forfeiting all his upwardly-mobile ambitions. Augustin lost his post, his profession, his future in Hesse, and his freedom. After serving a prison sentence in the city hall tower, he relocated his family to Brandenburg, Prussia, for a new vocational start, where he was appointed minister in Drossen.

But there he was poorly housed and paid, (more…)