Healing is Like an Artichoke

“Healing is Like an Artichoke”

by Nicole Costa

Artichokes are native to the Mediterranean area, but one year I decided to try growing them in the mountains. I found that they could, and did, grow well in the colder climate. It wasn’t so much the warmth, as it was the consistency in temperature needed for growth.

Healing is like an artichoke, you have to have patience, and be consistent in peeling away each individual layer that makes up the artichoke as a whole, then one day you will finally get to the core of it all, the delicate heart. It takes a lot of work before you can reach the core.

First you have to fix nitrogen into the soil, till the ground, do your planting, watering, weeding, monitoring of growth, harvest the crop, wash them, trim those rough edges, bang on them to open up the leaves, stuff them, roast them, and then eat all the leaves, one by one, by scrapping each one with your teeth, and then at last…the tender heart.

You can’t bypass around the work. There is no easy way to get there, but once you do it’s really about accepting all that was and letting go, and that’s when you get to enjoy the fruit of your labor.

~NLH