Garlic by Angel Young

Garlic - it’s an unlikely start for a post I know - but it believe me - it works just like dreams.

Plant it in October, after the equinox. Garlic, you see - it needs the cold, it needs the dark - and I like to think that’s an important part of dreaming too. In the coldest of nights there’s still a sparkle of dreams, caught up in a longing hidden in the commute home, or in waking early and it’s still dark, or in the cosiness of a fireside. It’s in the compost, where everything breaks down, and is born again as something fresh and green.

Sometimes the dark is literal too - it’s a place which hasn’t been easy, but has taught us to follow our own sense of light. That’s just what garlic does too - in the spring the garlic heads up for the light. It grows straight up, because it knows it’s purpose, formed as it was, in the dark winter days, and from one clove in the cold - one little idea of life - many cloves have formed. Dreams work like that too - once you get into the flow of them they just expand into realities you could never have imagined. It’s all about trusting in your October that by July there’ll be garlic drying on your garden table.

And the best thing about garlic is it’s strong flavour - it doesn’t pretend to be anything other than it is - strong and forthright! You like it or your loath it. I like my people like that too - and dreamers make for strong flavours. So be garlic-like - plant your hope in what may seem like the dark, and when you emerge, don’t worry about being just who you are - let’s embrace being full flavoured - the world needs people who are just that - and I just know you’re one of them!

  

Angel lives in the UK and is having fun bringing more of the things she loves into her life.