Gardening & Life

 

I had originally planned a different theme for us this month.

But my head, heart, and hands have been in the garden so much of late — with its many life lessons hitting me hard and fast as I’ve been out there — that I felt inspired to bring this rich theme here for all of us to explore together.

Largely I bring gardening to us as a potent metaphor.

But perhaps, like me, you’ll also find that time in the garden (or maybe just tending a single houseplant, or communing with nature in other ways) is meaningful self-care and a way of nurturing your own growth.

If you’ve been around Joybook for a while, you know I had some hard years recently navigating family crises and their fallout.

One of the ripple effects of being in crisis mode for so long was that my entire yard was completely neglected. I just had no time and energy to be out there. (And when I say “neglected” I’m not kidding. A few people actually thought our house was abandoned based on how weedy, overgrown, and run-down things had gotten outside.)

So getting back out there this spring has felt really healing. I’ve begun restoring it to something that feels like home again. And doing so has felt symbolic and bigger than just a garden — like I’m restoring myself at the same time.

It makes sense if you think about it…

Gardening involves working with what we’re given — letting go of the illusion of control and surrendering to something bigger than ourselves — but also transforming what we’re given into something beautiful through our love and labor.

This little patch of earth and ecosystem is one I care deeply about. It’s my home on this planet. And so tending it is a way of tending myself.

In doing that, I’m not trying to take it back to what it was, but rather I’m nurturing it so it can become what it wants to be now. In a way, that’s what I’m trying to do for myself too. It’s the only way of making meaning of the hard things that ravage our gardens — and collide with our lives.

I’m also putting something of myself into this work and this land. It’s an act of creativity and self-expression. And in doing that, I’m doing something more than just nurturing these plants, this garden — and myself along the way…

This thing I’m creating will offer gifts to others as well. It’s already offering them — just ask the nice postal worker who can finally deliver our mail without reaching through weeds and worrying if the mailbox will fall over when she closes it! But ultimately birds, bugs, other wildlife, guests, neighbors, and bypassers will also reap benefits in their own ways.

Just as I have as I’ve been laboring in my garden, I’m sure you too have been spotting the many parallels with life as you’ve been reading this…

Gardening reminds us of what we can and can’t control. It teaches us how to take care of ourselves and others. About patience and the beautiful things we can create one small step at a time. And about how our labors of love can be gifts to the world. It brings new perspective to dirt, decay, and disappointments — showing us how they fit into larger cycles of change and growth. And in even more ways than I’ve touched on here, gardens and gardening mirror our human experiences.

Because nature and gardens are so tangible, though — available for us to see, touch, smell, taste, and even hear — looking at our lives through this metaphor can make it easier to spot and understand aspects of our lives that otherwise might fly under our radar or just feel too messy to make sense of.

So whether you consider yourself an actual gardener or not, I hope you’ll join me this month in cultivating a richer perspective on your life by digging in with our prompts, programs, and conversations around this topic. (Forgive the puns. I couldn’t resist!)

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