Gifts From A Garden

Leafing through my latest gardening magazine acquisition I came across an article on handicapped gardeners. www.livingwallgardens.com Two were interviewed, one young, one a senior; both derived soul-fueling joy from gardening. It was the single most important reason for each of them to keep on keeping on. To not give up and wallow in self-pity or loneliness.

Gardening gives us a much greater gift than pleasure or produce. It gives us peace. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, world renowned Jungian psychologist and author of the mega-seller, Women Who Run With The Wolves, prescribes gardening to her patients as a way to get in touch with our inner spirit, the healing force. She says "Garden is a concrete connection to the life and death....it teaches profound psychological and spiritual lessons. Whatever can happen to a garden can happen to a soul...." www.amazon.com

We all need light, nourishment, and water to survive; but many of us neglect the soul, the spirit, the inner being that formulates who we are. Gardening brings us back into contact with our origins. It's down and dirty, elemental, digging into the mucky foundations. We scratch the soil in the hope of creation and fruition. In the process we descend to the basics of our psyches, providing the light and nutrients for sustainability of spirit.

We may never have the artistic talents of a Rodin or a Beethoven, but each spring we get down on our knees and plant the genesis of our yearly magnum opus, our greatest work. We create in the purest sense. Our efforts yield a miracle. A work of art so breathtaking we keep coming back to gaze upon it.

As the garden burgeons we drink in the splendor and beauty of new life. We swell with pride and accomplishment. All the sore muscles and aching backs are worth it at the moment the first bud opens its face to the sun. We feel like gods.

I find when I bury my fingers in soil; my mind takes a hike to a higher place. A quiet listening realm where stress washes away, problems find solutions, and old pain is healed. It is as though my connection with the garden has opened a conduit to my mind along which positive electricity flows, energizing my spirit, kicking it into action. All that is old tired and useless is booted out of the way. I come in from gardening physically tired, but mentally recharged.

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