Week Sixteen: Come, sit in my garden.

There is nothing more deeply satisfying than digging my fingers into sun-warmed soil in springtime.  It’s as if my body needs to verify that, in fact, the long dreary winter is well and truly gone.  The earth turns in my hand and releases the aroma of possibilities; what will sprout here, this year?  I inhale deeply in appreciation of the dormant potentiality held in my hands.

Each year the garden beckons me from my winter hibernation - where I had been dozing dreamily over seed catalogs - out under the open sky to greet the sun, wind and rain.  My host of trusty shovels, rakes, hoes and gloves, dusty from the months of disuse, are once again employed in my endeavor to connect with the earth and watch the magic happen.

For what could be more magical than dropping tiny seeds into warm earth and then sitting back to behold the unfurling of a tentative leaf?  Or the opening of a bud that swells into a rose whose purpose, it seems, is to entice the bees?  In this tiny world sheltered by my garden fence I feel at one, at peace and whole.  Here, I am part of the cycle of life that flows through all beings.  And when I reach for a snap bean or sprig of rosemary and nibble them with soil covered fingers, I know this is my place.

Some say time spent in the garden is a hobby or maybe even a business.  To them I say, “Come!  Sit in my garden and look with clear eyes and see the mystery, magic and delight in these simple things.”  Then they know that I am one who can hear the whispers of the plant people and am here to share the wisdom of sustenance.