garden inspiration – Twisted Weeds

Learning to be Here

This is a phrase used by one of my teachers recently, and it got me thinking, rethinking. In my youth, I read the book Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. What I remember of it is that Siddhartha learns that his spiritual journey is a personal one, and he spends most of his life by a river that becomes his primary teacher.

As a young adult, I read Be Here Now by Ram Das. The title says it all.

And thirdly, I was never successful at meditating until I learned about walking meditation, where you focus all your attention on one thing you are doing. So washing the dishes can become a meditation, or writing in a journal, or playing with your dog.

Or gardening.

Your garden can be your teacher. Close to the earth. One plant can be your teacher…or one bird…or an insect. You can focus solely on the one thing you are doing right now, be it watering, harvesting, weeding, transplanting.

Or you can rest in a chair or sitting on the ground, listening, watching, smelling, feeling the breeze and the sun, opening your heart and soul to the place you are in. No to-do list nagging at your mind; no thoughts of a phone call or a video game; nothing other than opening to being here now.

The other thing I think of today is listening to the birds and remembering how their song tells us that we are safe. We are home.

Digging deeper…

Wars…genocide…imperialistic hubris…deportations…assassinations…

So much intentional cruelty in the world these days. Many days it feels as if we humans have dug ourselves into a deep, dark hole. I look out my window and the sky is grey. The temperature is about 10 degrees cooler than average for the end of June. Compare that to the 20 degrees above normal we had the beginning of May. We’re riding a climatic rollercoaster as well as a political one.

I spend a lot of time dreaming, both night and day. Today I had a revelation. Years ago I visited Olympic National Park here in Washington state and gazed upon a Douglas Fir tree estimated to be 1000 years old. I imagined myself being there again…experiencing the essence of that tree. In comparison, I realized I have just been born.

Like a child in the womb, I have felt the darkness before I ever experienced the light. I heard sounds, softly muffled by my mother’s body. Her heartbeat familiar, steady and reassuring. Her voice and breathing a whisper; her blood coursing through my own tiny body.

Then I felt my world contracting, slowly pushing me outward, towards the light. I don’t know if I cried as I exited all I had ever known, into a seemingly boundless unknown. But I imagine that I was quickly swaddled and placed in my mother’s arms. I heard her voice again, louder than before; I still heard her heartbeat.

I was home. I am always home. Everything expands, including the universe as a whole. Life recycles.

Today I struggle to get back to that birthplace. The earth reminds me. My garden reminds me. Nothing is ever lost or left completely behind. The garden and the seasons remind me that everything dies but is reborn into another form. Seeds scattered by the wind, far from the mother plant, know what to do, know who to be.

I picture myself today, born anew. Bare feet touching the earth. I hear her voice, her heartbeat. I eat from my garden’s bounty and feel her blood in my veins. I feel her caress me in the wind.

I find courage to venture forth knowing that I can add life to life. Coming out of the darkness, I can witness and embrace the dawn. I can nourish the earth that nourishes me. I can hope, and believe.

We belong to the earth

That simple sentence has had me thinking for days about my place on this planet, about humanity’s place as a whole, and about how to change that. Different species co-exist in my yard, while eating and digging up much of what I try to grow. While the rest of the population eats and drinks together, taking turns when necessary, I enter the scene and they all flee.

I am trying to gradually change that, by sitting in my yard and minding my own business. But this situation is bigger than just me. I firmly believe that humanity may be ensuring its own demise by mishandling this beautiful planet that normally sustains us. Tornados, hurricanes, wildfires, floods, heat waves, extinctions and rising ocean temperatures all seem to be signaling that we are an infectious disease the planet is trying to fight off with everything it has.

Still we insist on clearcutting forests, throwing our garbage into the oceans, destroying topsoil, polluting the air, and paving paradise. We have separated ourselves from nature and declared that we have dominion over it.

This has changed my perspective as a sometimes gardener. I am older, slower, weaker, and have less stamina than in the past. I am on a fixed income/tight budget. Meanwhile the critters are multiplying; more bunnies, squirrels, deer, and birds – all destructive to a garden, to some degree. This affects me in relation to them, and to my garden.

I nurture what survives the onslaught of diggers, eaters, and those who like to nap on seedlings. Potatoes do well. I like to nap in the sun; so I pull my chair close to a bird feeder and to seed scattered on the ground. Slowly some of the critters adapt to my presence and aren’t scared away so easily. I enjoy watching the birds mating, the fawns kicking up their heels, the squirrels chasing each other up and down the tall fir trees, spiraling; and the bunnies munching oh so fast.

In my garden, I chop and drop weeds, mulching as I go. I scatter seeds everywhere, trusting that some will germinate. I spend time just watching the bees and other pollinators. I water deeply. I harvest herbs. I spend more time watching and learning, breathing in synch with it all.

I want so much to belong to this world.

Happy Mother’s Day

I had my two sons relatively close together. Since I breast fed them both…first one, then the other 17 months later…the nursing years seemed to stretch on forever. I call them “the lost years.” Not because I didn’t love them over the moon and back, but because by the time the younger one was…maybe three?…I realized I started slowly having more than 15 minutes at a time to myself. These mere minutes I like to call “time on my hands.”

What does one do with this time? I don’t have to change a diaper, nurse, bathe them, fix a meal, fix their skinned knees, wash clothes, entertain them (short attention spans means extra work), clean up after them…so then what?

I rediscovered my knitting needles and yarn stash. I’d been knitting since I was a pre-teen but had forgotten that “I used to do this.” I started a small garden…then a bigger one…but it wasn’t until those two babies were in high school that I started writing again. I volunteered in my community, eventually starting up a community center with the help of so many others. I started a farmer’s market. I started freelance writing and a friend and I started a knitting business.

Now I’m 75 and writing, knitting, and gardening still. My sons have had kids of their own, so I don’t need to call them up at 2:30 am to tell them I need to pee (a sort of revenge I thought of but never actually did.) I look at an occasional photo of them growing up and nostalgia creeps in. Their kids are growing up, some are adults. I think about how I loved being pregnant.

And now the wheel is turning. I think about reincarnation. Assuming I don’t reincarnate as a fruit fly or a cucumber…I dream of giving birth all over again. Some idyllic place with a loving partner and a tribe of monkey-children, wild and free, experiencing life with every part of their being.

~~~Adapted from the song “Pass It On” by Bunny Wailer~~~

“Be not selfish in your doings

Pass it on

Help your children in their needs

Pass it on

Live for yourself, you’re gonna live in vain

Live for others, you will live again.”

Bless the Mothers.

Gardening, procrastination, blogs, and the Oregano Wars

My spring gardening gets along well with my procrastination. I have no heat pads nor do I have space for starting anything indoors, so instead I occasionally water my one raised bed in the garden area where I’ve planted peas, chives, and wildflowers and my one container outside that has more wildflower seeds in it. Last night it rained some, so no watering necessary today.

Instead I read other garden blogs. I’m gathering a list of things I can do indoors that are kind of garden-ish. I’ve learned how to make seedling pots out of newspaper –https://youtu.be/7dlGQP81yfo?si=H2OzgO4jqOlmVczt ; I only made one and am thinking of it as garden origami. It’s on my desk full of odds and ends. Now I have reduced the constant clutter. Maybe if I make 999 more, my garden will do well this year…meanwhile, I’ve done a tiny bit of recycling and housekeeping…

I sprouted some scarlet runner beans to test viability and potted one sprout because I couldn’t stand sending them all to the compost. And I found a few inches of space on a table by a window…

I read about a rookie gardener, gardening with a friend for support. I choose to garden with a plastic lawn chair that I can drag along with me, useful when getting up after kneeling or the ultimate support – break time.

To those of you who have space to force bulbs indoors…I salute you! Now is the time most of those babies are blooming. I did this once, years ago. I may bring in a daffodil this year.

Outside, I’m starting to wrangle with my worst decision ever…oregano plants that have spread everywhere. A few plants many years ago have appeared everywhere, threatening to take over the world. I love oregano; how was I to know there were two kinds, the kind that stays in one place and the kind that rivals the squirrels in ultimate real estate takeovers. I think I must have planted Greek oregano (Origanum vulgare), which propagates by seed and by underground runners.

I should have planted it in pots. However, my time machine is currently in the shop, so I am slowly cutting it to the ground, and pruning again later in the season before it flowers. Anything not containing seeds will be composted, seeds will be burned. I will only be able to partially contain it, but this will have to do. It is even growing between the pavers on the driveway…

“Dealing with Oregano” replaces my sporadic indoor exercise program, weather permitting. I leave those decisions to the Department of Procrastination.

These old gardening terms are supposed to inspire today’s gardeners

Pleasance (or Pleasuance) – A pleasure ground attached to a castle or mansion, usually outside the fortifications.

It didn’t take much to turn my thoughts to a different kind of inspiration…ahhh youth!…from pleasance to dalliance to romance and more…and of course it’s a rose garden.

When I was young and starting out in gardening, I was so utilitarian. Beds lined up, paths between, all the same size and shape – easy to irrigate. No romance, all practicality.

I’ve never been much of a romantic, now I look back and think, so much wasted time. I’ve lived my life backwards. Now I am more fanciful, as I slow down and smell the roses.

That’s why my main advice to gardeners is to do just that. Sit in your garden and just love it in all its pieces and possibilities. Love the soil and all that lives in it. Love all that lives upon it. Leave your intentions and goals behind for a few minutes and just love what IS. The sun and all that reaches for it. The rain and all that sucks it up through roots and into mouths. The breeze and all that flies and floats and bends.

And the ineffable spirit that connects us all.

Don’t be afraid to love.