What does it mean to tend?
As I bring my business, Tend Your Self, into the world, I want to thank you for joining me on this exploration of what tending your self can look and feel like. I hope that this seedling of a business may grow into an ecosystem that offers a supportive, nourishing space that supports you as you cultivate and care for your self and those who you tend to in your community.
Spending some time with the word tend feels like an appropriate place to begin our journey. I want to invite you to reflect alongside me as we explore the contours of its meaning...
What do you tend?
My personal understanding of what tending means has come through being in gardens and learning how to garden. But I want to recognize that there are countless ways to tend.
Besides tending gardens (literally and figuratively), we tend to our selves, our loved ones, and the communities we are a part of. We tend to practices and hobbies. We may tend a camp fire, an altar, or a simmering pot of soup.
I’m curious...What comes to mind as you reflect on tending in your life?
What does tending mean?
The word tend comes from the Latin word tendere which means, among other things, "to stretch” and “extend" (Online Etymology Dictionary)
There’s also a difference between tending to something versus tending something.
When we tend to someone or something, we pay attention and act in service to them. For example, we may tend to the needs of a child.
Tending something, such as our self, a camp fire, or a plant, invites us into a role as an active caretaker and cultivator of that thing or being. (Merriam Webster Dictionary)
These definitions offer a useful point of orientation, but I also wonder...What does tending feel like to you?
For me, I notice that tending has qualities of gentleness, consistency, and intentionality. I think of tending as an action that emerges from careful observation, sensing, and noticing. Tending also feels relational in that it asks us to have a relationship between our self and whatever it is we are tending.
What does it mean to tend your self?
As we sense into what it means to tend your self, we can weave together the word origin of stretching and extending alongside the notions of caretaking and cultivation.
A spring pea plant is well-suited to be an example here. If you’ve seen a pea plant growing or grown one yourself, it has (very aptly named) tendrils which stretch out, trusting that they will find the support they need as they extend upwards and outwards. If a gardener is caring for and cultivating them, the gardener may build a trellis to support the plant's tendrils as it grows. This example illustrates how tending is relational - the gardener responds to the plant’s needs by offering gentle, caring support by way of a trellis.
When I imagine what it looks like to tend your self or tend my self, I see my deeper, multifaceted self as the pea plant and my conscious, everyday self as the gardener doing the cultivating and tending.
How does this image resonate for you? Is there another image or metaphor that comes to mind?
The practice of tending feels like a balm for the nervous system, particularly amidst the loudness, distraction, and turbulence that's so prevalent in our lives these days. I believe that as each of us finds space to tend to our individual selves and to each other, we can find pockets of quietude, presence, and deep attention that offer nourishment to our whole being.
