HOPE MONTH: DAY 15: “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?”― Percy Bysshe Shelley
I am an avid gardener/farmer. I grow a lot of things.
Gardening, planting a seed that may or may not come up is an act of hope, probably its highest form.
I know only some of my seeds will grow, so I plant more than I want to have manifest. That is sometimes a lot of fun when too many things come up and I have to winnow them out and plant them elsewhere. It takes a lot of time and work.
Gardening has always been my passion, because I feel the energy of the ground and my work with it makes it better. I find it healing for my spirit as well. I connect to the earth and play my role in cleaning up the beds where I plant my food and my flowers.
The beauty that gets created is, for me, always a miracle. I am always in awe of the growing process. I have planted so many trees in my life. I guess that is one good thing about moving as much as I do. Each property allows me to clean up another plot of land and to plant trees and heal the soil. Most of the properties are not kept up the way I had them, but not many people can match my energy and dedication to keeping them the way I do.
In the midst of winter, most gardeners love to read seed catalogs and determine what they will plant in the Spring. I am blessed that I live in a place where I get to garden all year and do certain tasks in Winter, some in Spring, and others in Summer and Fall. It is always fun to find out what will grow in which parts of my property and how I will plant for each season.
I now live in a place where the sun is not out for a lot of the summer, so I don’t grow some of the things I consider traditional summer crops. This is still an act of hope.
I place all of my trust in Nature that I will get what I am planting. Not every time is this productive. I have had scant crops in many places, due to weather I did not anticipate. Big farms have the same issues, and yet, we continue to put seeds into the ground and hope for the best.
It is a lot like working with people. I have spent a lot of years teaching and working with people in treatment and other mental health settings. I can only plant the seeds. They must do the work of watering and weeding to gain the best crops. I am not a part of that process. I just hope for the best.
Dolphin Hug 