As grows the garden, so goes my life. That has always been the case. If I am too busy to be tending the natural world around me, then chances are my personal world is way out of balance. For several years I have had a deep yearning to spend one entire spin around the sun taking at least a few minutes everyday to dig my hands in some earth and chronicle the growth that takes place on the vine and in my heart. Today - Winter Solstice 2009 - seems like the perfect time to begin this journey. Last night I gathered with some friends to celebrate the solstice and we wrote our wishes on a yule log. My wish was a simple drawing of a tree. To me, in that moment, it represented earth, nature, creativity, writing, health, simplicity - all the things that my busy, over active life has been pulling me away from. I know that I can move closer to all of it with one commitment - my daily garden blog.
I live in south Austin, Texas. We're in our "cold" season - an occasional 30 degrees at night, lots of 40's-60's. A couple of freezes have turned my Esperanza and Hibiscus into brown stalks but the lettuce in the vegetable garden is thriving and blessing us with a perpetual salad bar in our own backyard.
But this blog is more about my interior world and the transformation that arises when I dig in the earth. I am relatively new to gardening and not much of an expert. But I love how I feel when I am out there following my intuition about what needs my attention the most and especially how I feel after moving, breathing, digging, trimming, singing, reaching, pulling, planting, raking, hauling...Creative insights always come to me; I am a songwriter and lyrics and melodies start to flow. My worries and anxiety melt into the water that pours from my hose, or I can throw stuff around and vent some rage without anyone noticing.
I have wondered - if I gave myself permission to do at least one little garden task everyday for a year, how would my garden change and blossom and how would I? It's time to find out.
Today my time in the garden consisted of walking past it on my way to do Christmas errands and looking at the weeds in the front bed while making business calls from the deck. I did water the house plants and I felt a rush of pride just getting that done.
I make no promises as I begin this. It's as much an exercise/experiment in commitment as it is a chronicle of the seasons in my garden. It's one woman saying "yes" to something that doesn't pay the bills, knock much off the to-do list or further the career. But those garden fairies are calling me out to play and the muse is calling me to write about it. And anyway, it's not nice to fool Mother Nature, so I think I'll surrender to what she's asking.
I live in south Austin, Texas. We're in our "cold" season - an occasional 30 degrees at night, lots of 40's-60's. A couple of freezes have turned my Esperanza and Hibiscus into brown stalks but the lettuce in the vegetable garden is thriving and blessing us with a perpetual salad bar in our own backyard.
But this blog is more about my interior world and the transformation that arises when I dig in the earth. I am relatively new to gardening and not much of an expert. But I love how I feel when I am out there following my intuition about what needs my attention the most and especially how I feel after moving, breathing, digging, trimming, singing, reaching, pulling, planting, raking, hauling...Creative insights always come to me; I am a songwriter and lyrics and melodies start to flow. My worries and anxiety melt into the water that pours from my hose, or I can throw stuff around and vent some rage without anyone noticing.
I have wondered - if I gave myself permission to do at least one little garden task everyday for a year, how would my garden change and blossom and how would I? It's time to find out.
Today my time in the garden consisted of walking past it on my way to do Christmas errands and looking at the weeds in the front bed while making business calls from the deck. I did water the house plants and I felt a rush of pride just getting that done.
I make no promises as I begin this. It's as much an exercise/experiment in commitment as it is a chronicle of the seasons in my garden. It's one woman saying "yes" to something that doesn't pay the bills, knock much off the to-do list or further the career. But those garden fairies are calling me out to play and the muse is calling me to write about it. And anyway, it's not nice to fool Mother Nature, so I think I'll surrender to what she's asking.
I am so looking forward....I know I will feel more connected to your every day life all year long with this blog!
ReplyDeleteMe, too, Chrissy!
ReplyDelete