“If you don’t have a compost heap, you don’t have a garden. And if you try to make your mind completely pure…no thoughts of death, and no ‘bad’ feelings, you are trying to have a garden without any manure. It won’t grow anything.” – Alan Watts
In the dark places where old life decays, we find the fertilizer for what comes next. With time and warmth, the world’s compost performs its alchemy by transforming broken-down waste into wealth. When we patiently trust in this cycle of rebirth, we cultivate the means for new growth within ourselves.
For many years, the waste of my former life stuck to my reawakened sense of presence like smoldering ashes clung to the feathers of a phoenix. As I tried to rise, I felt they were keeping me buried. But, I was failing to see them for what they really were: opportunities, lessons, and repurposed inspiration. Once I allowed them to become part of my transformation, everything changed for me.
In my past life, I followed a fast-paced, high-powered career in global finance, one that ended with the violence of a superstorm—Superstorm Sandy, to be specific. Among the thousands of downed trees, severed powerlines, and flooded homes, I found my own world was also being uprooted.
Forcing reinvention became my only viable path—but it would take me years to understand that fully. Two beacons slowly began to light my way, calling to me like a lighthouse in a storm: the vast nature preserve extending from my backyard, and the feelings I received while playing music. As I traversed the natural wonders beyond my back door, I began reckoning more with the dharma of our world’s sustainability challenges. When I would return home and write music, I was often inspired by my treks through nature. I found myself kindling new life within myself through an evolving practice focused on presence and greater mindfulness in my daily life.
Slowly, these forces re-shaped me with distinct purpose and necessary patience. I knew my role was to work on myself—not in a monetary way, but by slowly improving my character, one step at a time. By opening my eyes, I was no longer afraid that I’d miss the miracle (what Joseph Cambell might call ‘following your bliss’), and I began focusing myself on using my old life to fertilize what would come next. With a little time and warmth, maybe I could leave the world better off, in ways both large and small. I finally felt like I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up—it just took three-and-a-half decades to name it: a good role model. That didn’t mean I had to be perfect. It just meant that I had to listen, learn, and lean into my efforts.
What I didn’t fully appreciate before became the fuel for my resurrected spirit; a compost pile of my past successes, desires, and ambitions. It doesn’t always feel that way—I often catch myself slipping back into old regrets. But when I do, I lean on a superpower we all have and I follow my internal map. A simple promise that nothing will be wasted if I know it can be used. Everything is feedstock for the next step. And the next step will be beautiful, simple, and proud.
The Exercise | Start Your Pile
Take a mindful moment this week to create a personal compost list. Divide a page into two columns.
On the left, write down what has decayed or ended in your life—the jobs that finished, the relationships that shifted, the versions of yourself you’ve outgrown. Be honest. Include the painful endings, the quiet losses, the things you’re still not sure you’ve processed.
On the right, write what grew from each. Not immediately—compost takes time. But eventually the old life comes back to bear new fruit. What understandings have already emerged? Or what can you see emerging down the road? What strengths develop? What new directions open because old ones close?
If the right column feels empty for some entries, that’s okay. Some piles are still maturing. It took me years to recover from a painful and destructive relationship before its lessons became reliable guides in my marriage.
The exercise is in the noticing. And maybe it helps you see that you’ve been carrying something long since passed. May this help fertilize the green shoots of your next footfall.
The Question
What in your life right now might be decaying—not into nothing, but into something new and as of yet unseen?
The only requirement for Superpower Mindfulness: the willingness to begin.
Begin, heard as Be + Again. In life, each moment is an opportunity to be again. To be present again. To be peaceful again. To be purposeful again. Just like at the beginning.
The goal is simple, but not easy: to bring one million more people into the mindfulness fold, exercising their superpowers so they too can change themselves, then the world around them. It all starts here, in each moment and every step. It begins with you.
Next up: The Most Important Five Minutes of Your Day
-Ken
The Cultural Easton 