Gardening Inward

As I walk around my May fledgling garden I look to see what’s doing well and what isn’t. I think about the decisions I made this year to plant more yellow and how the Daisy Mums look great mixed in with other annuals but were the wrong choice for the porch entrance pots. My American Wisteria is blooming. My mind goes completely, and restfully, blank as I watch the sun and shadows on waving branches. I look really closely at the smooth lines on a kousa dogwood bloom and stamens of a honeysuckle. Breathing in their perfume. 

Photo: Terry Tunkel

Photo: Terry Tunkel

When I go out to water I don’t rush. The hose is sure to kink when I rush. Oh well, you know the hose is sure to kink no matter what. I take my time watering and it becomes meditative and soothing. I stop and pull the heavy hose, unkink it, and enjoy watching slightly drooping coneflowers perk up. The water is cold and refreshing and I let it splash on my toes and rinse my hands. I have to stop and pull the hose again in another direction toward the herb garden. Time seems too slow. It’s quiet with only the birds speaking to me. The garden chores keep my hands busy but allow for reflection. My mind turns inward and my attention meanders. An insect buzzes by. Really, the garden is teeming with life, but gardening allows my crowded thoughts to still. Memories of my father, who passed away very recently, flit by. I don’t have to stop and examine these memories in the garden. I don’t have to decide how I feel but I have the time and space to do so.

I look happily at my peonies and their ant friends who enjoy the flowers’ sugar and keep away harmful pests from the buds. The ants wander in and out and around the blooms as my mind does.  I imagine myself to be very tiny and tucked away in dappled light with fragrant boughs overhead. I brush against a web and spiders scurry away in the vegetable garden. I think about these “pests”. We tend to hate spiders and ants because they look so different and alien. Ants are all around us and often they’re helping improve soil health by aerating the soil and breaking down nutrients. Spiders get rid of harmful pests. My wandering mind thinks there is a lesson in this about people but the gentle breeze blows the thought away. I pluck and rub a leaf of mojito mint and plan this year’s blackberry mojitos. I’m gardening.