It is Spring :) Our warm days are interrupted by cold winds and periodical rains. Yet the sign of spring is in the earth, breaking forth from the earth and spilling out into green. It is beautiful and as Emma's school poem read today;
I'm glad the sky is painted blue,
And the earth is painted green,
With such a lot of nice fresh air
All sandwiched in between.
It is a sandwich that my soul feeds upon. Renews my being and brings such a smile to my face. Our little corner of this earth has such a little window of time to be painted green. Our sandwich usually consists of a sky painted blue and our earth painted brown with the nicest, freshest air in between. And so during this little window of time, in which our earth is painted green, I find myself lying in the swaying grass at every opportunity I can steal.
It is during this time I must also prepare our immediate backyard for spring planting. Deciding where the squash is going to go, delighted to see that our tarragon has decided to come back, flowers for the fairies, and sunflowers for my heart. It has delighted me beyond words to have my hands in the soil again and yet most of my time, thus far, has been spent pulling weeds.
Our yard is not fenced, it is not orderly or boxed in by our neighbors. We are privileged to have our backyard mingle and unfold into the hills. Into the beauty of untainted nature where the deer live and the owls call to us in the evenings. And this joyous privilege is also met with untainted nature unfolding into our yard and sharing in my hand's efforts of squaring off our yard and planting plants that are not natural to this area. My attempts to have a patch that is painted green long after nature painted the rest brown.
I love the magic of this world and even tho I know what a weed is, it pains me to pull them out, one by one. To make sure that I have taken them firmly by the base and removed their life source, their roots, from the ground. I know that it is silly of me to take no delight in pulling out weeds, and I plunge forward knowing that it is something that must be done. It must be done so that the plants I have chosen to grow there will receive enough water and not have to spend their days fighting for space under ground.
So I make my rounds and pull out the obvious weeds, leaving the ones that despite being a weed have produced beauty in a little flower and then Ian makes his rounds and specifies that these too are weeds and pulls them out. It is a yearly dance that we make and every year I long for the pretty weeds to linger a bit longer in our yard. Yet they too are weeds and will steal the limited resources our plants will need. *sigh*
Well all this weed pulling, along with our annual dance it got me to thinking about my life.
I believe that everyone is made to be a flower. Everyone grows where they are planted. Even if it is a temporary placement, it is our natural energy to dig our roots down, produce flowers and draw our life sources from what is around us. I look at my life and see the roots I have spread, I see the beautiful sources that feed me, and every so often I can catch a glimpse of a flower. It is also my job to pull the weeds out of my life, the weeds that fight with my roots, that take from my resources and, horror of horrors, that might call me a weed. Most of my weeds have come from my own thoughts, my own fears, my own insecurities. These weeds are just as much part of nature as all the flowers that grow. They unfold and intertwine with my personal garden. Where there is room for roots, where there is resources, where there is beauty, there will forever be weeds ready to grow.
I feel that like our backyard, I have much to tend to. It is an ongoing journey that does not come but once a Spring but daily through out the year. It is my job to gaze upon my inner garden, first and foremost appreciate the beauty and then out of appreciation for the beauty and without guilt, pull the weeds that fight with my roots, that take from my resources, and steal from the beauty of my flowers.
I feel that this is new to me as I have always just accepted what was growing in my garden and hoping that the power of good thoughts would change every weed into a flower but like our annual dance, these weeds that I have well wished little flowers on, are weeds too and thus must be pulled.
It is a beautiful thing to have the clarity to say, this is not good for me and this is what I want in my garden. I speak of simple things, simple thoughts, and simple feelings but oh how powerful to pick through each simple thing, simple thought and simple feeling and say, this is not for my garden. I really do want my flowers to grow because you see, I have these four precious souls that gaze upon me every day and are learning how to tend their own gardens.
I'm glad the sky is painted blue,
And the earth is painted green,
With such a lot of nice fresh air
All sandwiched in between.
It is a sandwich that my soul feeds upon. Renews my being and brings such a smile to my face. Our little corner of this earth has such a little window of time to be painted green. Our sandwich usually consists of a sky painted blue and our earth painted brown with the nicest, freshest air in between. And so during this little window of time, in which our earth is painted green, I find myself lying in the swaying grass at every opportunity I can steal.
It is during this time I must also prepare our immediate backyard for spring planting. Deciding where the squash is going to go, delighted to see that our tarragon has decided to come back, flowers for the fairies, and sunflowers for my heart. It has delighted me beyond words to have my hands in the soil again and yet most of my time, thus far, has been spent pulling weeds.
Our yard is not fenced, it is not orderly or boxed in by our neighbors. We are privileged to have our backyard mingle and unfold into the hills. Into the beauty of untainted nature where the deer live and the owls call to us in the evenings. And this joyous privilege is also met with untainted nature unfolding into our yard and sharing in my hand's efforts of squaring off our yard and planting plants that are not natural to this area. My attempts to have a patch that is painted green long after nature painted the rest brown.
I love the magic of this world and even tho I know what a weed is, it pains me to pull them out, one by one. To make sure that I have taken them firmly by the base and removed their life source, their roots, from the ground. I know that it is silly of me to take no delight in pulling out weeds, and I plunge forward knowing that it is something that must be done. It must be done so that the plants I have chosen to grow there will receive enough water and not have to spend their days fighting for space under ground.
So I make my rounds and pull out the obvious weeds, leaving the ones that despite being a weed have produced beauty in a little flower and then Ian makes his rounds and specifies that these too are weeds and pulls them out. It is a yearly dance that we make and every year I long for the pretty weeds to linger a bit longer in our yard. Yet they too are weeds and will steal the limited resources our plants will need. *sigh*
Well all this weed pulling, along with our annual dance it got me to thinking about my life.
I believe that everyone is made to be a flower. Everyone grows where they are planted. Even if it is a temporary placement, it is our natural energy to dig our roots down, produce flowers and draw our life sources from what is around us. I look at my life and see the roots I have spread, I see the beautiful sources that feed me, and every so often I can catch a glimpse of a flower. It is also my job to pull the weeds out of my life, the weeds that fight with my roots, that take from my resources and, horror of horrors, that might call me a weed. Most of my weeds have come from my own thoughts, my own fears, my own insecurities. These weeds are just as much part of nature as all the flowers that grow. They unfold and intertwine with my personal garden. Where there is room for roots, where there is resources, where there is beauty, there will forever be weeds ready to grow.
I feel that like our backyard, I have much to tend to. It is an ongoing journey that does not come but once a Spring but daily through out the year. It is my job to gaze upon my inner garden, first and foremost appreciate the beauty and then out of appreciation for the beauty and without guilt, pull the weeds that fight with my roots, that take from my resources, and steal from the beauty of my flowers.
I feel that this is new to me as I have always just accepted what was growing in my garden and hoping that the power of good thoughts would change every weed into a flower but like our annual dance, these weeds that I have well wished little flowers on, are weeds too and thus must be pulled.
It is a beautiful thing to have the clarity to say, this is not good for me and this is what I want in my garden. I speak of simple things, simple thoughts, and simple feelings but oh how powerful to pick through each simple thing, simple thought and simple feeling and say, this is not for my garden. I really do want my flowers to grow because you see, I have these four precious souls that gaze upon me every day and are learning how to tend their own gardens.
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