Shabti: a small human figure representing a person who would perform a given task for the deceased in the afterlife.
In Ancient Egypt, pharaohs and those who could afford it were buried with a small figuring to help them as slaves or servants in the afterlife.
In 2020, we had to scrape our backyard completely. All of our garden beds? Gone. Grass? Gone. Flowers? Gone.
The only thing left were the fruit trees that gave all of their blessings to the squirrels.
It's taken many years, but this spring, we've finally tackled fixing the infrastructure (sprinklers, plants, path, and beds.)
In the process, we've uncovered a variety of what I like to call "garden shabtis" – shard of glass, rocks, and sticks in the vague shape of a mammal.
I like to think of it as a bit of magic that's been hiding in our garden beds.
How do they get there? Most of them come from the mulch and compost we create from kitchen scraps. They start as something significant and slowly degenerate into these shapes.
The rocks were there when we got here. Over the last twenty or so years, we've removed most of them. This year, we celebrate them as go creators of our garden.
Shabti's are gifts created by one generation of people to help a leader live out their afterlife in ease.
Garden shabti's help our soil structure. The soil here is blood red clay. With a little wood and rocks and sand, not to mention water, the gardens will grow almost any vegetable or fruit through October.
Have you found a garden shabti in your vegetable beds? They are set there by the magic of the world to remind us all that we are not alone in our efforts.
And that's a very hopeful thought.
