Sowing the seeds of love

It might be the part of me that never grew up and still likes to play in the dirt. It might be the part of me that wants to be self-sufficient and “stick it to The Man.” It might be the part of me that reveres Mother Nature and the mystery of creation. In truth, it is probably all of those things and more that gives me my love of gardening.

When I am working in the garden I feel both the peace of solitude and the community of life abundant. Insects and microbes, worms, toads and snakes. Creepy and crawly things make the time I spend in my garden sacred to me.

It might be hard to believe while the wind still whips off the harbor and snow still covers so much of the ground, but spring is coming swiftly. Seed catalogues are being delivered, DIY home stores are bringing out their peat and pots and seeds and hand tools. I’ve paid my registration fee for the community garden and tiny seedlings are straining for the sun from their little incubators on my kitchen table. Life still sleeps but if you listen to your body and to the world around you there is a stirring. A quickening.

More and more my life is pointing me in a certain direction. Part of this change in my life is sensing and embracing my own worth and happiness. I’ve felt the quickening of my own spirit. To that end I’ve decided that my garden plot this year will be a place of beauty and of healing. Flowers, herbs, red and orange fruits and vegetables. I have never planted a themed garden before, always having focused on production. I am looking forward to dedicating this space to my spiritual and physical healing this year. What a joy to have beauty for beauty’s sake!

There will be tomatoes, of course, and pumpkins. I also plan to have scarlet runner beans – those grew abundantly in my garden last year and I saved enough seeds to create a wall of beautiful red flowers. There will be lettuces and peas early in the season. Root vegetables to remind me to stay grounded: red skinned potatoes, enough radishes to remind me where I put the carrots, sweet potatoes and beets. I absolutely adore pickled beets and did not put up nearly enough of them last year. Don’t worry, the pickle-making will be documented so stay tuned in June! Then when it is warm enough: lavender, sage, oregano, purple basil, nasturtium, poppies, and chamomile…

I feel better just imagining it. That’s the power of magical thinking. When done with intention, the things we do, the things we create, resonate with memories, familiarity and power. In the very planning I imbue my garden with healing and happiness. You are welcome to visit any time!

Yoga and the Crow: Excising that which does not serve.

I went to a yoga class today that was way out of my league. Silly me, I thought “Yoga Basics” was a beginners class! It was hard. I felt foolish. But something happened that makes me think I was supposed to be there.

The studio’s pretty big, don’t ask me the dimensions but 25 of us fit in there pretty well. Mirrors all along one wall, picture windows all along the other. I really like this studio as it is where I take Bellydance and used to take a Shake Your Soul ® class. The point is, I’m comfortable in there with my body, my skills and my self. Or so I thought.

Twenty minutes into the class we’re all hanging out in Downward Dog and the teacher comes up to me. I expect and accept corrections in my yoga practice, just as I do in my dance. How else is one to learn? But she walks up to me, wrenches my pinky finger away from the others in a way that its twisted, probably-broken-at one-point bones just don’t want to go and says, “That’s a bad habit. Spread your fingers.” What could I do? I took the note. “Have you ever done yoga before?”

*****SCREECH******

Suddenly I’m back on stage at the high school auditorium, warbling out my best rendition of Who Knows What as an audition piece for Hello, Dolly! The director (who had cast me previously in half a dozen straight plays) stops me mid-bar and asks, loudly, “Are you even in the school chorus?” I was. I had been for years.

******SCREECH******

Wow! A flashback within a flashback. This had better be good, right? About a year prior to that fateful audition I had turned up dutifully for my voice lesson with Mrs. P, the school chorus teacher. I know now that she had probably just been drunk and grumpy. But at the time her words were like a punch to the gut. “Oh, it’s you. This is a waste of time. You should go back to study hall.”

I have to confess, that I had a moment there when I nearly picked up my mat and left. I don’t know what stopped me. Instead I answered quietly, because I was still upside-down after all, “Yes, I have.”

She walked away. The class returned to standing and I saw in the mirror a reflection of a crow, sitting on a rock in the parking lot rubbing his beak against the stone. He looked calm, purposeful, and much like a chef honing his knife on a steel.

If Mrs. P’s words had been a punch to the gut, this instant was the dent she left finally popping out after 18 years. Those old feelings of inadequacy, the fear of being found out for a fraud, the idea that this teacher’s time was better spend helping someone more deserving? Gone. Don’t get me wrong - I mean, it still hurt. But more like a paper cut than a skinned knee. It was a clean cut.

I do not want to dub this bird an Otherworldly messenger. To me, this is the world that matters. But symbolism and association can be powerful magic and if a carrion-crow wants to excise something dead and rotten within me, who am I to stop it?

All in all, I left the class the way I like to leave yoga practice, feeling a little lighter, a little looser and ready to observe without criticism and simply to trust.