About ten years ago, I had my first and only vegetable garden, and it was delicious in all ways. Since we moved into our new home here on Bainbridge Island, WA, more than a year ago, I have been waiting to feel the urge to plant vegetables before I begin to cultivate my beds. I have only just realized why I have not been able to make a start. I do not want to bend to plant broccoli, but I seem happy to bend to plant crocus.
Some of us are meant to plant squash, and some of us are meant to plant daffodils. There is a nobility in having a vegetable garden that I truly admire. Flowers are giddy, existing only to glow.
Now I know that the giddy garden is the one I really want to plant at this time in my life. I want to plant joy. I want riots of color and scent. I want hummingbirds and bees to whirr and buzz in my yard. I believe that the world is in real need of beauty right now. We are all so busy becoming self-sufficient that we may have forgotten why we want to be self-sufficient. It isn’t to not perish, but to revel, to dance, to live in delight.
Herbs still hold allure because of their shamanic and alchemical properties, but I will buy all my organic veggies at my local CSA. I hope to feast on my organic treats outside this summer communing with the flowers.
Do you know what you want to grow in your garden?
It sounds just too obvious, but it’s true. You must plant that which you wish to grow.
We live in a world that is spinning so fast that we are not sure what we are seeing or feeling, and we are often diverted from intentionally focusing on what we wish to create. With so much drama and trauma going on around us, it is more than easy to continually focus on images of heartbreak and tsunami, on radioactive meltdowns, on the endless way we humans have found to both suffer and create suffering for our cohabitants on this blue orb. This way of living is exhausting and it exhausts the planet, too. There is only one way to stop and that is this:
STOP.
You are in your power when you are choosing what you want to focus on in life AND the speed at which YOU journey through life.
By stopping, you will give yourself a chance to refocus, to step back. To decide what you want to create. To decide what a sustainable vision really looks like for you. To understand how you can ride the current and still end up where you really want to be.
If you feel inundated by the world’s pressing concerns, you have many options. You can grow an Activist Heart, and work through grass roots campaigns. You can grow a Warriors Heart, and battle those who choose to disregard to the rights of all beings. You can grow a Philosopher’s Heart and illuminate the Big Questions that need answers.
Maybe you need to hibernate for a while. When bears hibernate, they are really not sleeping, but are in sync with a chemical their body produces that has the ability to alter their waking state. Our culture has given rest a bad rap, and sometimes, rest is the way to integrate, to take pause so you can allow your vital essence to renew.
My way is to have a Shamanic Heart. Shamanism is so big that it beats the beat of all the hearts. My way of being here is to promote beauty and to serve all beings. I serve life by finally planting flowers instead of pumpkins because this is what authentically calls me. I presence life by serving those in need, by offering what I have learned through shamanic miracles and grace. I love life when I am teaching others how to use core shamanism as a spiritual practice. And there are almost always flowers on my altar when I do it.
I hereby choose beauty over chaos, color over fear, perfume over the depression. By standing tall in what I choose, I can then turn to serve all of life. This is a much more empowered position than being constantly thrashed by the circumstance of the day. We cannot serve if we get constantly tangled up in the intense dramas playing out all around us in our culture.
As many of us know and feel, our culture is going through a rebirth. This is an intense process certainly, but a woman in labor gets through it because there will be a baby. The pain is part of the experience, but it is not the point.
While my garden may look like a place of petals, it is really a place of process, and, in part, I have designed it to serve you, to help you to decide what kind of gardener you are. Planting corn is magnificent, but not if you want to grow a Star Gazer Lily. There is a place for you and your particular shine that will help to create a new reality, and I hope you can find sustenance here.
I am waiting for you in the bouquet.