Allow

Photo is Mine - Hosta Unfurling

Is anyone else losing track of days? How can it be May?

I have been waiting for some inspiration to strike, so that I could return to the page and add a new post.  It hasn't happened.  Since my last post, I have received lots of packages - a kit to build a new raised garden bed, bags of soil, envelopes of seeds, and fertilizer.  Chicken wire to keep out the critters. 

But, no inspiration has arrived upon my doorstep. 

For someone who likes control, this is an interesting time. I am a petri dish, growing a new version of myself that will hopefully be able to weather what the virus has done to the world. 

My garden is the best thing for me to hold onto right now.  Last weekend, when I had been outside in the dirt for the entire day, Tom stopped by and asked me if I was obsessed.  I was.

I am. 

I am obsessed with nurturing that which I can control. 

I can't hug my son. I can't go to work. I can't visit my family members. I can't walk into the grocery store without feeling some measure of anxiety.  I can't enjoy a pizza delivery without first wiping down the cardboard box. I can't go anywhere without a mask on my face.


But, I can put on my gardening gloves and rake the moss from my lawn, sprinkle grass seed on the bald spots, loosen the soil from around my perennials, and spray for deer. I can divide my iris and lilies. I can weed away the spring intruders. I can fertilize and mulch and aerate. 

And if I do all this, my plants will blossom.  And I will have evidence, that once again, after a long hard winter, life returns.


Allow

There is no controlling life.
Try corralling a lightning bolt,
containing a tornado. Dam a
stream and it will create a new
channel. Resist, and the tide
will sweep you off your feet. 
Allow, and grace will carry
you to higher ground. The only
safety lies in letting it all in --
the wild and the weak; fear, 
fantasies, failures and success. 
When loss rips off the doors 
of the heart, or sadness veils your
vision with despair, practice 
becomes simply bearing the truth. 
In the choice to let go of your
known way of being, the whole
world is revealed to your new eyes. 

- Danna Faulds