Today I worked in my garden as it was the first warm day that I was at home and had some spare time. What is thoughtful or mindful about that, you ask? What does gardening have anything to do with spreading the Christmas spirit? Well…the way I see it, a garden yields beauty and gives endlessly of itself. Right now, my garden doesn’t look much like a garden. It is a beastly brown…all dead, bald branches and leafless masses. But as I have been gardening for several years, I know that what my eyes see is an illusion of what is going on deep within the earth where little baby leaves and stems are making their slow ascent to the sun. The Christmas spirit is embodied by hope and love and selflessness…and I cannot imagine a better place where these things are played out than a garden.
I don’t know how many of you reading this garden…but if you don’t, I encourage you to buy a pretty, potted plant and take care of it. Water it…and watch for new little leaves to sprout up. If you care for it, it will clean the air you breathe. If you care for it, it will brighten your day. If you care for it, the knowledge that you have kept something alive all by yourself is pretty neat! I say the last because I believed myself to have a brown-thumb once upon a time…but over the years, that has changed…thank God! I really believe that if you take care of a little plant…you will change…something happens… I find in the presence of plants and nature in general, I slow down and breathe deeply…my eyes ever aware of any changes… It happened to Pat, too…but his bit of heaven is the grass! Yup – we’re officially yuppies!
Abram L. Urban said, “In my garden there is a large place for sentiment. My garden of flowers is also my garden of thoughts and dreams. The thoughts grow freely as the flowers, and the dreams are as beautiful.” And it is so true for me. My garden is a place of rest despite the work that goes into keeping it alive. It is a place where I am free to think and pray and plan and dream and feel unadulterated joy. Unless I see some grub or bug or caterpillar eating my babies…then the war is on! But you know, there is joy and satisfaction to be had there as well…even if I do feel a little guilty when I kill those suckers.
From my garden, I will gain peace. From my garden, I will be able to brighten days as I share bouquets of flowers. From my garden, I will get exercise and from my garden, we will get fruit and interesting birds and bugs to look at. My children will have a nice place to play and dream and imagine. The birds will sing to us. The bees will buzz around in their lazy way when the heat is heavy and thick. I guess if you can’t see the connection between a garden and the Christmas spirit…I cannot explain…you just have to live it…
From the picture below, you cannot see all the flowers that were blooming. there were pink ones, blue ones, purple ones and red ones...and we had persimmons starting to turn their brilliant orange hanging from their branches. Rosemary bushes and American lilac that are both fragrant plants and lantana flowers of all colors bursting forth... It was truly amazing after our drought broke... I'm ready to see all the brown turn into this spectacular palate... I can't wait!!
Until tomorrow... Annie
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