I also spent a very pleasant couple of hours in the living room with my husband after dinner, watching the seals play offshore, listening to the rain, and sharing thoughts about organizational behavior and dysfunction. I love discussing my schoolwork with him; he always has such great insights and stories to tell...
And then I got to create this lovely tree/garden -- which, I confess, was just an incredibly satisfying process.
It's funny: I used to be an amazing gardener before my girls were born, but once they arrived on the scene I lost my green thumbs -- totally. So reading in Jean Shinoda Bolen's Crones Don't Whine this morning, a chapter entitled "Crones Have Green Thumbs," I was initially a bit put off. But she was quick to say that what she really meant was that we crones know how to nurture, when to weed and what to prune; we know how to protect what is vulnerable; we get that there are seasons... "Crones know that something small can grow big, that something can bloom or bear fruit before it dies."
I think we also know that nothing lasts forever -- which may explain why I was so concerned by that failed image yesterday. But working with this one last night I could see this series is not yet done, and that I'm learning as I go along, just like a gardener: what to add, what to prune, what to allow to expand, what to weed out... This image just... flowed, poured, like spirit.
I always love it when things seem to pour through me, rather than having to churn them out. Which is kind of why I love doing the poetry blog, which almost always works that way. Not that it's great poetry, but ... it's easy; it flows.
Hmm. Interesting, given that yesterday's posts were about resistance. I wonder where this is going...
2 comments:
You definitely packed a lot of wonder and beauty into your day!
Amazing -- btw -- I too had an incredible green thumb before my daughters.... it's almost as if I said to myself -- ok -- so if you plants can't tend for yourself, too bad. I got other things to nurture and I don't want to divide my attention. I think even the pooch suffered in those initial days of my daughters' infancy.
I have been picking up a plant here and there in my travels and on assignment, looking to fill in the empty spaces my son has opened up for me to fill in my garden.
In the past I would have looked through book after book and researched just exactly which plant I wanted to go where and would learn just why it would do best in that spot and how to treat it before I would even go shopping.
Yesterday I was at a nursery looking to buy blueberries bushes from the local blueberry farmer. I said, "I'd like three bushes."
"Do you have any now?" he asked.
"Nope," I said, "so I'll need more than one variety, right?"
"Yup, which ones do you want."
"I haven't a clue, just pick them out, I'm sure they'll be fine ... and if they aren't then I'll come back and get something else. You know best."
What a shock I gave myself. What a good feeling that was to just let it "happen" and be good with whatever it was.
A lot of that attitude has come from watching your struggle and learning from you. Thank you!!
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