Celebrating The Good With A Garden

With spring approaching, I think of all the beautiful flowers that are the first to arrive on the scene. I also, think of how lovely it would be to have a garden. I do not claim to be a gardener, but I have a great respect for the practice of being an active participant of something like a garden that has a natural cycle to it. Whether we are tending the earth, our children or our jobs. We watch what we tend with an inquisitive eye as it changes, takes on new forms and guides us in new directions.

The act of gardening is a true example of this change we can be a part of as things in our life fall away only to reveal what is budding deep within. The exercise of working the land and working with one’s hands not knowing if what we plant will come to life. But, planting it anyways. Being quiet, and caring for something outside of oneself where one finds clarity and greater meaning.

There is planning involved where just like the blank canvas, the gardener busily plans in the winter months what will be apart of their landscape in the spring. Flowers, bean plants, potatoes, raspberry bushes. There is anticipation and excitement in the planning of what will be. The act of planning, putting our dreams “in action,” by putting a part of ourselves in the world. With a hope and a knowing that after the long months of winter spring is sure to arrive.

As an artist, I understand the connection to a place like a garden. Whether it be in our garden or the studio there is a place where we do our inner work where we plant the seeds of what we hope for in our life  and then wait. We go back to this inner place, or go underground when there is heartache, grief or loss. We till the earth, plant the seed in the empty places in our life and wait for the budding of new life to show itself to us once again. We take its cue, we take care of this new life and make sure that it is not overtaken or overcrowded with the life around it. We protect it, our creative life from that which will pull us away from it all together. It is our place where we say YES– I am willing to put my story into this and be part of what it has to teach me about death, growth , and renewed life.

Having this place like a garden can be where we see more clearly the “good” that we have in our life or that what we contribute to others. This “good” has beauty and importance and something that we may have discounted  from our life all together. The “good” that you do in the world, where it may seem small has a greater meaning to others than you can imagine. The “good” work that you do in the world has a story, and a place where it flowers. It is up to you to recognize this inner beauty within yourself and how it feeds those around you. IT is important and should be celebrated.

Celebrated in a place like a garden, or in a piece of art where all our senses are taken in and we are in complete awe of how beauty often arrives where we least expect. Yet, it also arrives in the places where we put on our apron, roll up our sleeves and put our whole heart and soul into. There is inherent abundance within a well kept garden, where we see truly what we have in our life verses what we have not.