Garden Wisdom

I grew up with a mom who had a wonderful rose garden, we had THE best peach tree in the world beside our pool.  Both parents tended to their parents' gardens.  Both sides of grandparents had gardens in their urban backyards.  In the summertime all the grandkids (aka child labourers) came to pick the harvest of endless beans, peas, cucumbers from rows of itchy plants and bugs.

I always figured I would live in New York, or San Francisco - some big city in a highrise.  Who needed a garden?  It was just so much work and dirty!  Jump ahead to 2001 when I fell head over heels in love with my husband.  I was, at the time, living downtown Vancouver.  He had a six acre farm in what seems like the furthest you can get away from urbanization in the Lower Mainland.  The first time I went out to his place (our current home), he had me on the John Deere tractor moving a pile of wood shavings (pretty sure now, I was being tested...)  This is one of our theme songs my husband has broken out in tune to a number of times over the years:

"Green acres is the place for me.

Farm livin' is the life for me.
Land spreadin' out so far and wide
Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside.

New York is where I'd rather stay.
I get allergic smelling hay.
I just adore a penthouse view.
Dah-ling I love you but give me Park Avenue.

...The chores.
...The stores.
...Fresh air.
...Times Square

You are my wife.
Good bye, city life.
Green Acres we are there."

So here I am out in the country, and despite missing some of my city-life tendencies over the years, I have been inspired for the better, and the deeper when it comes to moving towards "what best serves the growth of my [own] soul".  

I am a believer in the quiet moments offering us the most potential to grow - the chance to heal and become better for the hardships we face.  A parallel in nature is the period of sleep where the body not only replenishes its stores of energy lost in the day previous, for the day ahead, but also secreting growth hormones not just for growing children, but repair and maintenance through adulthood.  We rest, we settle in to our natural rhythms and give ourselves time to come back to homeostasis.  This is on a physical level.

On a emotional, spiritual level, we pray, we meditate, we rest, we mull things over, we love in quiet moments.  Even science now gives credit to the benefits of meditation: Psychology Today, MIT News  For me, gardening has become a level of meditation.  When I was young, picking weeds was excruciatingly boring!  Now, it is a simple act that connects me with the earth, that allows me the time to emotionally 'have off'.  Not only that, but there is an innate wisdom nature gives us if only we listen.  What happens in nature, after billions of years of evolution is not just dirt growing stuff.  It is not something mankind will figure out, label, understand, control nor beat in the time "science" has been around.  Human beings are not exempt from the whole our world is.  We can fiddle with nature, but sooner or later, like water, it will find it's way back to the path it is meant to be on, with humans or without.

So this year, I am STOKED about our garden!  Last year was pretty good.  We have a greenhouse, we have raised beds that my husband put his blood and sweat in to (with more to come this year).  He builds the infrastructure, I populate, maintain and harvest the garden with my trusty little side-kick daughter. 

Repeatedly, the practice of being in our garden inspires me: "There Will Be A Day..." "Poop=Fertilizer" (catchy title, right?), "Life Systems", "Day 3 & My Garden".  We see in things inspirations of what is true for us - perhaps like horoscopes... Whatever the case, no offense to anyone else, but these things ring true for me.

Why garden?

1. It is meditative
2. Gardening is repeatedly a common practice in National Geographic Blue Zones (pockets around the world where people lived measurably better...where people reach age 100 at rates 10 times greater than in the United States"
3. Gardening involves five of the nine factors of Lifestyle Habits of the Blue Zones ("1. Just Move", "2. Down Shift", "5. Plant Slant".  Gardening is also most often times communal or involves a sense of community and shared knowledge ("7. Belong" and "9. Right Tribe")
4. There is a connection to the earth and raw life (if you believe it is a gift from God, or just the flow of Life) that is rare to be found otherwise in today's day-to-day life
5. It is an art, it is a study, it is a craft, it takes investing those things towards nature with positive, respectful, innate intentions.  When you give back to nature, you are more in balance.
6.  Decrease your (organic) produce costs substantially
7. Know where your food comes from, how it has been grown, and that it still carries the maximum amount of nutrients
8. It takes caring about something and that will always benefit your spirit
9. If you have children or have them in your life, think back to your own best childhood memories - freedom in building anything the imagination could offer, mudpies, splashing around in water, the therapeutic nature of getting dirty, fresh air, no rules, learning the important lessons from life itself.  Three documentaries to watch, two of the same name: "Where Do The Children Play?"  The first below (8 min), the second "Where Do The Children Play?" a 1-hour PBS documentary by Dr. E. Goodenough for the University of Michigan. (link to website provided).  "Play Again" documentary with David Suzuki.   "What they will not value, they will not protect.  And what they will not protect, they will lose". Charles Jordan (Chairman of the Board, The Conservation Fund")  This is an investment in everyone's future.
10. It is good for the earth to plant something. 

Everyone has their own expression, their own connections with Life and Nature (I hope).  Gardening is not for everyone.  But if this speaks to a part of you, plant one thing - one tomato plant, one strawberry plant, a few carrots in a bucket - and nurture it this spring and summer.  Keep at it.  Care. Get your hands dirty, and see what things surface for you in your own quiet moments.

Next post about yet another theory on gardening/life...