A Safe Place to Begin Again

How the Emmanuel pocket prairie became a host for Heaven’s hidden work

By Josh Singleton | Founder and Lead Cultivator, The Neighborhood Garden Project

At Emmanuel, our second garden site, we carved out a pocket prairie. The birch trees there were planted in May of this year. They are still young. Their bark is thin and curling. Their roots are still settling into the soil that was once mowed flat by tractor — a field cut periodically for maintenance purposes, managed for order instead of life. We didn’t plant one. We simply stopped mowing and defined the edges, giving the field permission to become what it already wanted to be. And right beside the prairie, where order once ruled the landscape, we began cultivating vegetables — not for production alone, but to remind ourselves that tending soil and tending souls are part of the same work.

These birch trees aren’t on automatic irrigation. They rely on weekly hand watering — slow, intentional care. It’s a rhythm that requires presence, not convenience. Every time we bring the hose, we remember that partnership is part of cultivation. The soil remembers consistency, and life responds to faithfulness.

Now, in that same ground, a river birch is already hosting life that did not exist here six months ago. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular — just walking the prairie, checking the trees. Then I saw it: curled against a branch, bright green, full and quiet. A Polyphemus moth caterpillar, thick with stored energy, calm, feeding on what it had been given.

This was no random visitor. It was here because something in this space said yes on its behalf. The birch said yes when it rooted. The prairie said yes when it was allowed to exist. We said yes when we stopped forcing the ground to stay neat and started letting it become what it was made to be.

That caterpillar is already preparing to spin a cocoon — hidden work no one will see unless they look closely. This is how transformation begins: not loud, not noticed, but wholly alive. It’s how Heaven moves through soil, quietly rewriting what was once controlled.

And here’s the part that still undoes me. That caterpillar is only here because a mother moth came in the night and laid her eggs on those new birch leaves. She is a creature of the dark hours — she worked in stillness, hidden like so much of God’s order in creation. She came in silence, trusting what had been planted. She deposited the next generation, then was gone.

While we slept, while no one was watching or measuring or documenting, something alive chose our little prairie as a safe place to begin again. That is not accidental. That is alignment. Most people talk about impact as something that starts when people show up. But here, the real work began before anyone arrived — with a moth in the night, led by instinct older than our plans.

This is the Kingdom’s way: the unseen choosing what’s been made ready. A moth we did not invite decided this ground could hold the future. That is the part that matters most.

This pocket prairie is less than a year old. These birch trees have only been in the ground since May. None of it is established. None of it is impressive. Yet life is already layering on top of life. The prairie plants draw in pollinators. The pollinators draw in birds. The birch offers food and shelter. The moth trusts the birch. The caterpillar prepares its cocoon. The cocoon will overwinter and hold a winged future inside it.

All of this came from ground that, one season ago, was kept low under the tractor’s blade — trimmed into order but never allowed to live. This is how the Kingdom grows — quietly, layer upon layer, through simple obedience. It doesn’t wait for perfect systems or five-year plans. It responds to faith, to patience, to the slow yes of being present.

When Heaven and Earth agree, life doesn’t ask permission to arrive. It just comes. We are taught to measure visible fruit — how many people, how many pounds harvested, how many events, how many outcomes. But soil doesn’t lie. The real sign of alignment is when life begins to use a place without being asked to. When the land starts hosting transformation on its own. When something entrusts its future to the environment we made room for.

That caterpillar tells the truth about Emmanuel. It’s evidence that this ground is functioning as designed. It’s forming people even when they don’t realize they’re being formed. It’s healing even before we name it. It’s multiplying even before we count it. We planted trees. God planted testimony.

We didn’t force this. We didn’t market it into existence. We didn’t chase it down. We said yes. We planted. We stayed. We kept showing up. We didn’t hurry the prairie. We let it breathe. We hand watered what couldn’t survive without care, and Heaven honored that rhythm. The response to that posture is a caterpillar on a young birch, preparing for a cocoon that will carry it through winter and reveal a moth with wings that look like eyes.

That’s our reminder: keep cultivating, keep protecting what’s real, keep trusting the slow work. The evidence is already here. We aren’t just cultivating vegetables — we’re creating safe ground where transformation takes root and multiplies.