In The Garden
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I’ve been spending a lot of time working in the garden and tending to the land lately, to the plants and animals under my stewardship. It has become a very satisfying and rewarding relationship, and I’m realizing it is the closest thing I have to family right now. They are my constant companions; I go to sleep with them and wake up to them in the morning. They are under my care, and I am under theirs.
Now that I’ve been through a full year’s cycle of shaping the garden: planting, allowing certain things to grow and removing others, I can see how the environment is beginning to take shape. Wildflowers that only appeared in a single patch last year are now scattered everywhere. Saplings are populating the edges of a mown path. Rooms are formed: brambles curl to create walls, elderberries shoot up to become door frames. It has been a meditative practice to allow the land to behave as it likes, and read the patterns that it tells. These are stories I would not have heard if I had bent it to my will—deciding pompously where I thought things should be without listening first. Of course I’ve had ideas on what I would like to be, but I’ve received the best guidance and inspiration by standing still in the midst of the land, observing and dreaming. Seeing where the moss likes to grow, noticing where the turn of a tree root guides a natural path, where a depression collects dampness for moisture-loving plants. This is slow work. It’s collaborative work.
Tending the land is also full of lessons on boundaries. Some are quite basic: I’m overheated and tired and frustrated—no the work isn’t done, but my body is, and that must be respected. Others are about what belongs where: the work of discernment. Pruning, trimming, and weeding are acts of loving heartbreak. It’s sad to cut away piles of boughs—all of the time and energy that went into growing them, gone in a slice! But it’s necessary work. The overgrown shrub will suffer and become ill without careful editing. It appears lush and abundant—it has so much to give—but over time this overgrowth will become too much to bear. To remain healthy, much must be cut away. It’s a bittersweet feeling: seeing it bare and sparse, and watching it be able to sway freely in the wind, knowing it will come back stronger and happier. Something that is a weed in one part of the garden is encouraged in another. My soft heart wants to let everything grow; what right do I have to say no? But being in intimate relationship with the land requires adherence to the cycle of life-death-life. It is an act of care to weed away the honeysuckle that I love so much, so that little tender ferns can grow in a hollow. The honeysuckle that is allowed to run free on the fenceline rewards me with its fragrant blossoms.
This is the give and take of relationships. Listening, learning how something is, how it wishes to be. Then putting in the hard work that benefits all involved. In just this first year, I have seen the environment flourish in response to my care. At its core, it’s about an exchange of energy: where you turn your attention is where things will thrive. Two pieces of advice I’ve received are coming to mind; the first was from my riding instructor when I was a kid: “Wherever you look, that’s where you’ll go.” She was talking about keeping your head up and looking in the direction you want the horse to take—if you look down, that’s where you’re going to end up. The other was from a belly dance instructor, discussing a difficult move that takes a lot of practice to accomplish: “You’ll get out exactly what you put in, no more, no less.” Sadly, this is not always true in human relationships. Sometimes we put in quite a lot and simply do not receive it back—which is where discernment comes in. But the garden has taught me that with a willing collaborator, that work can yield gorgeously gratifying results. I can’t wait to see what will grow next year.