The Asking Questions Practice

The Hodja was famous for asking innocent-seeming questions that exposed profound foolishness in conventional thinking. Applied to seasonal farming: ask your calendar the questions it cannot answer. Why do we prune in winter rather than spring? Why is this month called the 'resting month' when the soil prepares for spring? What would happen if we planted salad greens in autumn instead of spring? These aren't rhetorical provocations but genuine inquiries that test your calendar's foundations. Many traditional timing practices originated in different climates, different soils, different economic conditions—yet persist unchanged. The Hodja's method of innocent questioning creates space for examination. Rather than accepting your seasonal calendar as given, you interrogate it playfully, discovering which practices serve your actual land versus which merely echo ancestors. This practice isn't dismissal of tradition but its deepening through genuine encounter. Ask foolish questions. Many will have foolish answers, revealing assumptions worth abandoning.