“Be very careful what you set your heart upon, for you will surely have it.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
I circulate this story every five years because I want to keep it alive, and I also think it fitting to be the piece accompanying this week’s love letter to garlic.
Audio of Mary Morgaine reading ‘The Ring’
When I was 19-years old, living in Bellingham, Washington and attending Fairhaven College, I met a street vender who sold jewelry and this one particular turquoise ring kept drawing me back to his cart, day after day. I finally came up with the $20 to buy it and felt so thrilled to have it on my finger! It did not remain there very well, however, as it was a little too big, and, over the years, I would lose it periodically—only to find it again in the strangest of places. Usually I could not remember where or when I lost it, as though it had just vanished unawares. When I would notice that it was no longer on my finger, I would wonder, “Was it gone yesterday as well…when did it take missing?”
In addition, the stone itself had started to fall out of its silver setting and would disappear for weeks at a time. Once, I found it a few days later, lying in the yard, a turquoise glow catching my eye. Another time, a friend found it in the college auditorium after it had been missing for months. Eventually, I met a jewelry maker vending at a Nanci Griffith concert and asked if she could fix my ring, and she agreed to put the stone into a new setting that would embrace it better, and resize the band so it could fit my finger more securely. I left the ring, my address, and $50 with her, along with complete faith in its return. Three months later I received it in the mail, looking beautiful as ever.
I wore it for a while, and then it disappeared again. This time it took missing for over a year. I knew it would turn up again at some point though- I just knew it. On the spring equinox of 2006, I completed my seasonal ritual of harvesting ‘black gold’ from my worm castings compost pile. One year’s worth of kitchen waste had been transformed into three 5-gallon bucket-fulls of beautiful soil.
I scooped out a quart of it to dress my houseplants, and as I spread the finished compost on my big Ficus tree (Ficus is the tree under which the Buddha became enlightened btw,) the ring peaked out of this ‘black gold’ compost. I stared in awe, then grabbed the ring and ran outside to lie under the silver maple tree, and there I just cried with the magnificence of the moment. This ring! It had spent over a year in the transformation process of turning plant waste back into rich earth—some of the most basic, important work there is to a healthy planet, and now it was back in my hands again! I felt like I was being crowned a queen to wear this ring, after all it had been through.
It stayed on my hand for six months, until that autumn when it disappeared again. It was during the garlic-planting season at Herb Mountain Farm where I worked as a groundskeeper when I noticed it was missing. But again, it could have fallen off anywhere, for when I realized it was not on my finger, I was in that spellbound place of wondering how long it had been gone.
About nine months later, I started pining away for my lovely turquoise ring. I said a prayer, kind of like a test-“If this ring shows up again, I will never doubt your hand of Grace that rules my life, Creator.”
At the time, I had a gold journal that I called Ceridwen’s Cauldron, in which I wrote down things that I wished to do or have; things that I did not have time to do currently in my life but hoped to do someday; and other things that were beyond my control that I wanted to happen. I delegated these matters to the Great Mystery, where magic and miracles are always unfolding, and I wrote down ‘The Ring.’
Well, not long after, I was harvesting the quarter acre of the fall-planted garlic at the farm with a group of women when one of the women on the far side of the field from me suddenly screamed out when she pulled up one of the garlic plants. We all ran to her and low and behold, there at the base of the garlic stem, resting on the bulb, was my turquoise ring!
I asked to hold the plant, and I remember I began trembling with such a powerful knowing of being witnessed by Divine, and the respect that I felt of being heard and held, and all I could do was cry with joy and lift up my arms in praise while I tried to explain to the women what was happening. We were all in amazement- it was quite an exciting moment for everyone, actually!
The ring had fallen off while I was planting the garlic cloves in the field that last autumn apparently. The clove sprouted through the band of the ring, holding it in place underground for nine months until it was brought back to light with the harvest.
The accumulation of wild experiences with this one ring caused me, among many things, to deeply reflect upon the energy and vibration of minerals and metals mined from the earth. The intelligence connected within all of life on this planet is far beyond our comprehension. I think the jewelry we wear gives forth its own vibration onto our bodies and the space around us, and it is well worth paying attention to. I imagined this stone must really need to commune frequently inside the veins of the dark earth, that place where it was birthed and grew and would still be, if humans had not of blown it out of the ground.
I kept the ring attached to the garlic, on my altar for a month before I cut the garlic stalk and took it off to wear again. This time it fit with ease and more perfectly than ever. Frank, my partner at the time, and I made a love elixir with the garlic bulb (and some other aphrodisiacal ingredients:-))
A few years later, I lost it again, this time in a mud pit. I was leading a Sisters of the Forest camp for young girls and we got to play in the mud left over from the building of a cob house. I couldn't help but do a handstand in the fun of it all, and there went my ring with it! I noticed right away this time, and my friend Rachel persisted in searching for it until it was found.
The last time I saw my beloved turquoise ring was while attending a wedding ceremony in Marin County in 2012- someone gave me a compliment on it. I noticed that evening though that it was no longer on my hand. Hart and I searched high and low for it, and I gave the folks who owned the venue my phone number, but I never heard back. I do miss that ring and long for it at times. I hope it is somewhere inside the earth. Who knows, maybe this story isn’t over.
A few people had said that I should tape the ring to my finger to be sure I would not lose it again, but that is not the way I approach life. One of the greatest lessons I have to learn in this life is that of detachment, of letting go, and trusting that all that is real and true will circle back in perfect time. And to lift my voice in gratitude for the unique and personal ways we get to experience the Holy Spirit everyday, if we are open and paying attention, for we are all swimming in a sea of cosmincidence.
Cosmincidence— the flawless arrangement or flow of the Divinely Ordered Cosmos. Kind of like a coincidence, but more potent. At first I began writing down all the cosmincidences that would happen in a day, but quickly there grew to be so many that I could not find the time to record them all. The days often read like fairy tales. The serendipitous flow of daily life is there for any and all of us who are willing to pay attention and appreciate. The universe loves to be recognized for its splendor and for us to surrender and allow it to take us on an amazing ride. Where do you want to go? Thank you, beautiful turquoise ring, for teaching me this.
Under a Full Moon in late February,
Mary Morgaine Squire
~Love Letter to our Plant Allies~
Garlic
Allium sativum
Amaryllidaceae
Dear Garlic,
Ooh Wee, ain’t no mistaking your presence in the room! Thank you for not holding back, for not being timid to express yourself fully. Distinctly and uniquely you, dear garlic, your powers cross our illusionary boundaries.
I love your contrariness- how you sprout in cold instead of warmth; how you go just as well in an African dish as an Italian one; how your smell when being sautéed in olive oil attracts hordes but on our breath repels everyone.
Central Asia birthed you over 100,000 years ago and over the millennia we bred you into a sativum. Garlic festivals are held all over the world in your honor. The differing varieties being displayed, tasted, traded and integrated into all kinds of recipes, including ice cream! Chesnok Red, German White, Spanish Roja, Silverskin…We place your hard neck bulbs in baskets, fairly easy to peel but not good for storing so long, and braid your soft neck greens, hanging up these bulbs with hard skin that allows them to last for months. Pinkish and red tones wrappers and cloves beautify the kitchen landscape.
In early summer, before the time of your bulb harvest, we wander the rows and snip the lemniscate scapes as they begin to swell with seed, to bring more beauty to the kitchen and incorporate into our meals. What a cook’s joy you are, garlic! Thank you! Peeled, chopped, crushed, infused or eaten whole, you go a long way with your flavor. When freshly harvesting your hard neck, we don’t even have to peel you. Blend your whole bulb up in olive oil and store in the fridge for later use- a hack of any chef!
The Sattvic diet eliminates all alliums, raw or cooked, because you are said to arouse too much heat (in other words, desire) in the body. It is true you are an aphrodisiac. That is why I put you in my love elixirs:-)
Garlic, you may very well be the most widely used natural medicine there is. So many people consume you without any idea of how you are strengthening our immune systems, fighting off unwanted bacteria and building our gut flora. As a natural antibiotic, put you and Echinacea together and we can heal a million ails. I turn to you for earache relief, stabilizing blood pressure, inhibiting fungal and parasite growth and maintenance of blood sugar levels. Couldn’t imagine a fire cider recipe without you! Your juice is super sticky and can be a bonding agent for wounds and little art projects, too.
In 2000, I was selling you at the farmer’s market in New York and Lyme’s Disease was affecting 1 out of 3 people in the county where we lived. I was telling someone at the farmstand about how you repel ticks and then we both looked down and there was a tick crawling in the basket on top of your bulbs! We laughed so hard, but still—if ingested, I think you repel ticks and mosquitoes from wanting to bite us as readily.
This year we experienced an insect in our stored garlic- something I haven’t encountered before, and I believe it to be a leek moth. They had eaten all through the bulbs. What a bummer. We did all that work to grow and store you and then gave it over to the bugs.
Garlic, let me heap my gratitude upon you and tell you that I love you so much because you are the being that brought me here to Herb Mountain Farm in 2005. A friend who worked here asked if I could help with the garlic planting on a Saturday, and I was doing a lot of indoor work at the time so this sounded refreshing. When I pulled in the driveway (in a dilapidated truck filled with 4 other people coming to also plant you,) I got an overwhelming sense that I was home. That was almost 20 years ago, and I am still here.
Hart gave me the opportunity to step into managing your production crew, which meant several months of the year were dedicated to you, garlic. Fertilizing, mulching, planting, weeding and watering the beds; harvesting, curing, storing and cleaning bulbs; and then selling you to the stores and of course, eating a ton of you in the process. My family would tell me I reeked of you! My car always smelled like you, too.
For these several years that I worked so intimately with you, I had quite a purification happen. I came to understand why you are said to be the herb used to scare off demons and vampires and ward off the evil eye, for being in your presence so often brought to the surface old “demons” in me and also helped me send them on their way. Every one of us has a shadowside and most of us spend our life distracting ourselves to avoid facing it. I felt that handling you so often left the uglies in me with nowhere to hide. You are some powerful medicine, Garlic. Maybe now I will resurrect that healing and make a necklace of your cloves.
Forever indebted to you,
Love,
Mary Plantwalker
This is such a wonderful story, with a profound message. I like the fact that you never forced the ring to fit your finger and your reasoning behind it - what a great way to walk through the world.
Thank you for writing the story of this ring again! Circles and cycles of being hidden/lost and being brought to the light again! I had forgotten about the Sisters of the Forest epic mudpit! That legend lived on through many consecutive years of summer camps… the girls refused to let it die.
I love how you refuse to tape this ring to your finger, but to trust so deeply in what comes around again.
And yes, to Garlic!! Hallelujah!