July 14

PATIENCE MONTH: DAY 14: “Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.”― May Sarton

I like this quote a lot! I am a long-time, ferocious gardener. Not one who just dabbles in it, but one who gets all into the dirtiest aspects of gardening. I will chop down trees and large shrubs if they don’t  fit the plan I have for a property. I change the entire dynamic of the soil and the space and all aspects of the property.

I haul in (literally!) tons of bricks and build raised beds, and use barrels and pots and tree stumps and water features to transform a property into an oasis of growing, flourishing organic food and berries and fruit trees and, of course, flowers. But along with back-breaking work, I also have to practice the patience of knowing that I can do all of that labor, but each raspberry and each green bean or artichoke is a miracle that I cannot produce.

I dig pits and grow beautiful red worms and soil and shovel it into all the beds twice a year, but I cannot control the amount of sunshine, rain, and other ingredients those plants will need to produce. That is up to the Universe. I have to do a tremendous amount of footwork, especially during the growing seasons, but I cannot have any say over what comes. My climate is mostly cloudy in the summer months, so I don’t always get the results I would like. I do it all anyway. This year, the payoff is good. Last year, it was not that great. This keeps me humble and reminds who is in charge.

I know others who just give up and quit when they don’t get the results they want. That is not how the Universal Power works. When you are connected to Nature, you have to let go of results and give your heart, over and over, to the work that is called for. We are not here to shift the Earth; we are here to learn to work with it to enhance and do our part. Not doing it is an empty existence. We have the mandate to co-create with that power, not to control it.

Life in Nature is grace. I pity those who don’t get that. They are so lacking in the thing I came here to get.