The Garden of Life

 I've always wanted to be a gardener, mostly because I love the beauty and energy of the plants with their varied colors, shapes, textures and vibrations. On a deeper level, I realize it's because I like nourishing things into creation. Whether it's a pastry, a book or a plant doesn't matter. There's something fulfilling about starting with a few separate ingredients and mixing them together into a whole new thing that has its own purpose, design, flavor and energy. There's something magical about the alchemy of this mixing process and how it generates a new expression of being that wasn't there in the separate ingredients.

I've never had a garden of my own before. When I was a child, my parents grew strawberries, bell and chili peppers, green beans and tomatoes in a small flower bed but I've never had a whole space dedicated to a garden. It feels good to have one now, with fencing high enough to keep the local deer out. Yesterday I planted some onions, potatoes and a tomato plant in my garden. It may not look like much, but it is fabulous to me!

Each step of the way toward creating this garden has been exciting: from getting the fencing up, to gathering the dirt, to starting a compost pile, to creating a dedicated compost pile, to building the beds, to adding the worms, to mixing in fortified soil to our dirt... and finally to planting a few things.

I don't really know how to garden. I only know that I love playing in the dirt and nourishing things into bloom and fullness. I love seeing a bud grow and open into a beautiful flower. I love seeing a tiny sprout evolve into a vibrant plant. I love watching a blossom turn into a piece of fruit. I love lifting a plant from the soil and finding food down there. It's like magic!

Gardens are great metaphors for life. We nourish what we want to grow; we give it our attention and our love. Sometimes things happen and we watch what we've given our nourishment, attention and love to die before it reaches its full expression. We can't stop it or change it; it just dies. And sometimes we get to witness the full movement of what we nourish all the way to it's complete expression, it's last breath, and then it dies.

Either way - whether a thing is here only a moment or a lifetime - we get to experience its unique beauty and expression. It is sacred life force energy moving through space and time in a way we can't control. But we can give it our nourishment, attention and love if we choose to. And we can open to the full experience of it - whatever it is - if we choose to.

This year, I want to; I choose to. Each day offers me another opportunity to build and create the garden of my life.  

What will it be? What will I plant? How big and full will it get? What will die young and what will reach its complete expression? What will I nourish, give my attention to, and share my love with? What will I notice and what will I miss? How will I honor this garden of my life?

"Can I love all that is in my life ~ all that comes and goes ~ wholly and unconditionally, just like the plants in my garden?"