The blogging community is a delightful place! Though you send out posts to what seems like a void, there are folks who resonate with your writings/art and take the time to let you know. They also will add their own marvelous perspectives and I am enriched by their sharing.

This happened to me yesterday as a kindred spirit in England wrote in the comment section about the rhubarb sheds in Yorkshire where rhubarb plants are forced to grow. I’d like to quote her very words, as I found them so perfect in describing what’s going on there:

“On the topic of this post, did you know that if you enter the dark sheds in Yorkshire where they grow forced rhubarb you can actually hear the rhubarb growing, pushing up in search of light with an urgency and determination that is audible? I’d love to hear that live one day. Rhubarb sheds are traditionally only lit by candles in order to avoid introducing any other source of light that would cause the rhubarb to lose its tender pink colour. I think listening in the light of a candle to the stalks growing in the dark might be quite life-changing actually. Putting one in touch somehow with the growing that so often happens unseen and unheard but which is nonetheless going on. I often think that in fact it’s often in the “fallow” periods of life that great creative forces are born and which emerge subsequently. I find that exciting and makes the fallow periods somehow easier to accommodate. Wishing you a space to hear and enjoy your own growing. It’s assuredly there.”

Thank you so much Elizabeth of the Mrs.Thomasina Tittlemouse blog! I responded to her right away and then she sent me a link to where these sounds of rhubarb growing have actually been captured in real time!

Click here to listen to rhubarb growing!!

I agree with Elizabeth that it sounds quite strange. I imagine growth of any kind (including my own) to include a kind of moaning or stretching of sounds. This popping is more how I imagined flowers blossoming…quick jolts and bursts of life.

I have my own bit of “rhubarb” growing here in a basket next to my chair. The thing I love about having knitting and crochet going on during these “fallow” times in my life, is that I have an enduring expression of life happening even in the darkness. <sigh>

I continue to listen and will keep sharing what I’m hearing as I knit, as I draw, as I crochet and walk.

Thank you dear reader for walking along with me!