someone once told me the definition of hell: on your last day on earth, the person you could have been will meet the person you ended up being.
and every day, you water your orchard.
i did not want to write this edition because i had to stand in my own orchard first. i had to look at every tree i planted with my own hands. every habit i fed. every vice i watered in the dark, knowing it was poison, knowing it was growing, knowing the rope was getting tighter. and i had to admit that no one planted this garden for me. i watered it. every single day. with my own hands.
she is not a character, this woman. she is you. she is me. she is anyone who has ever looked at their life and known, with instant, devastating clarity, exactly what is ruining it. and kept watering.
you see, if i asked you right now to close your eyes and name the thing, you could. instantly. you would not hesitate. maybe it is what you eat. maybe it is the hours on your phone before sleep. maybe it is the attitudes you carry. maybe it is the people you surround yourself with. you asked, and consciously you know. you already know what is keeping you from greater happiness.
but do you change?
no. you keep watering. and the days pass. the months pass. and suddenly another year is gone. what happened with the gym. with the language. with that course. with that promise you made to yourself in january that is now buried under the same habits that buried last january's promise and the one before that. the tree of habit grew. it grew a lot. and the rope is tightening.
this time you feel it. you realize you have to stop. you know it is ruining you. and still you keep succumbing to it. because the watering is not dramatic. that is the trick. the watering is ordinary. it is a scroll. a snack. a glass. a small surrender that weighs nothing in the moment but compounds into a life you did not choose.
and the years go by. each day the orchard grows taller, more rooted. and the rope already cuts your air. and you grumble at life. how can you not grumble when there is a rope around your neck that you tied yourself, one habit at a time.
and on your last day, someone approaches. they look like you. but no. they smile. they stand taller. they walk with an air of love. and you look into their eyes and you understand. that is the person you could have been. but you decided to water your noxious orchard. and with a tear of regret, you leave this world.
i made this edition so that is not how it ends.
because there is another ending. you stop watering. not with willpower. not with discipline. with clarity. with the devastating, liberating recognition that the orchard is yours, which means the drought is yours too. you simply stop feeding the habits you know are killing you. and the orchard, your noxious orchard of vice, dies in the drought. and you live.
inside is a signed and numbered fine art print of "noxious orchard of vice." a manuscript that holds the philosophy of the daily watering: how vice becomes agriculture, how habits become trees, how the rope tightens so slowly you mistake it for normal. and a handwritten letter from me to you, because the woman who is ready to stop watering does not need another screen. she needs something real in her hands. something that is not another vine.
it arrives sealed. by hand. because this edition is the opposite of everything you reach for without thinking. it requires you to stop. to sit. to open slowly. to feel what you have been numbing.
this edition was made for Avalon members.
so close your eyes. ask the question. you know the answer. you have always known. the only question left is whether you will keep watering, or whether today, right now, you will let the drought begin.
i love you.
bv
