Rotting onions skins, picked over brittle chicken bones, and apple cores with teeth marks still pressed into the soft flesh lay in a pile. She throws on to the growing mound eggshells which had been carefully tiptoed over, potato peelings, and fresh grass clippings. All these things along with curled autumn leaves and plate scrapings are turned over as the pitchfork is thrust into the center and lifted. Dig, and turn, dig, and turn, dig, and turn, over and over until it is all thoroughly blended. Once the churning has been completed, for this particular round, the entire pile is covered in a thick layer of straw.
Within a couple of days, steam rises in the cool morning air, making visible the deep work happening within. From the outside it looks as if nothing is changing but we must resist the urge to poke the pile. Heat must build and with it the moisture from that heat that will speed up the break-down process. Over time the putrid stench that comes from rot and bacteria will lessen. After some time, depending on what has been discarded, the raw matter will transform into super dense, nutrient rich humus perfect for enriching new seeds and nourishing established plants.
*
Composting our food waste is essential for the health and well-being of the planet. Composting turns our raw, discarded organic material into rich fertile matter. Compost, which is different from soil, contains nutrients which can then either be used to plant seeds or nourish existing forms of life. However, the right conditions must be put into place deliberately, otherwise the potential of what that waste can become will just lay on the ground and rot. Not only would a potent fertile ground be missed, but an entirely new toxic substance would also be created.
The purpose of composting isn’t just to have a place to put our food waste but to generate a substance that will ultimately provide a rich environment in which to grow new life or feed existing forms. The second important factor of composting is the creation of the correct environment to support the transformation process. Thirdly, are the specific ingredients besides the actual food waste needed such as air, water, and heat, and lastly is that good ole factor of time.
We can apply the same principles of composting to the left over ‘waste’ of our emotional experiences.
If you were raised in the generation where children were ‘seen and not heard,’ or “if you cry, I’ll give you something to cry about,” or there was no room for your hurt, anger, or sadness then you likely did what most young ones did and buried your emotions in your body and soul. Once buried emotions either festered, or you chose to bypass the difficult emotions by focusing solely on the positive (known as spiritual bypassing). Neither method of coping is the same as feeling, processing, and transforming the raw material that is our honest, often deeply painful emotional response.
Just like a healthy compost mound we need certain material and situations for the optimal process to work. Composting organic matter requires six elements, five of which are: brown material, such as organic waste and autumn leaves, green material such as grass clippings, air, water, and time. Translating this metaphor to use with our emotions, the brown material equates with the deep hurts and grief (i.e., the leftovers from difficult human interactions), green material equates to new perspectives, new possibilities, and hope. Air would relate to our new way of thinking and water is the feeling of the emotional suffering/pain—not bypassing but allowing it to flow through us. The fifth element needed is that all essential ingredient time. Compost is not made in 24 hours, nor can we truly process and transform our deep emotions quickly. In most cases that which needs to be transmuted will determine the length of time necessary for change to take place.
The sixth element of composting is a safe container although this is really the starting point. Within the compost bin the perfect space is created for the deep breakdown process to begin. We too must have a safe and contained space in which to express our emotions without fear of shame or ridicule. Just like rotting onion skins, apple cores, and eggshells our painful emotions are not pretty to look at or experience—so take care when creating your container, make sure it is solid and can withstand the pressure that will build within it. Our homes and primary relationship would be the optimal container but often we must look towards therapists, guides, and wise elders to help hold the heat of our emotional processing.
Once we have a safe space then we can begin to examine the emotional stuff from the wasteland of our lives. All the times you said you were too busy to allow yourself to feel and release your hurt, humiliation, shame, anger, or heartbreak, those emotions are all still waiting to be transformed. The western world has prioritized the squirreling away of our emotional lives at great and often grave expense. Those hidden rooms in your heart or soul where you placed your feeling until you have time or space are like mini pressure cookers and with no release there will be an explosion or breakdown. Organic matter not processed correctly becomes dis-eased waste, so too does unprocessed emotional material. Of course, there will be times when we need to set aside our feelings in order to complete the practical necessary tasks of adult human existence. Bills need paying, children need tending, and dogs need walking. And it is also not appropriate to throw oneself on the ground in full tantrum mode in the middle of the supermarket or office canteen, hence the importance of both the container and time. But set them aside too long or bury them out of sight and they will pop up in the most inconvenient of forms.
In the deep inner workings of the compost pile, transformation is both the goal and the process. Nothing is to stay the same if a rich humus is to be created. However, there are caveats; too much water and the scraps cannot decompose, too much light and there is not enough depth for the process to work, too cool and there is not enough pressure created within the system for change to take place. Constant churning is not helpful to either our compost pile or our emotional by products, and sometimes we simply must let things be. Balancing all facets is required for change to take place.
When we really take the time to process our difficult emotions, we can use our experience to help germinate new seeds in our own lives and the lives of those we live and work with. Seeds of hope. Seeds of future projects. We can also use it to fertilize our current ground of being. Knowing that what we have transformed within us will fuel new possibilities and versions of ourselves we have yet to dream into creation.