Beginnings Require Faith

I love to garden. In the garden, time is lost. Hours seem like minutes and days feel like hours.

I spend many snowy days dreaming of my gardens. Come February my perfect garden becomes etched in my brain.


When I finished getting my vegetable garden prepped, I hesitated to plant.

As I looked at my new garden beds, I wondered,

"Maybe I should send in a soil sample before I plant."

"Maybe it would be better to put the fencing over there."

" I should get a book at the library on growing tomatoes and cucumbers vertically."

I was trying to procrastinate.

I could send in the soil sample and make adjustments after the plants are in.

I already moved the fencing twice.

My tomato plants are four inches high. I started my cucumbers from seed. I have plenty of time to research vertical gardening.

It was time to begin. I knew by beginning I was letting go of my perfect garden.  I was letting go of the outcome. I could nurture and tend to my garden but how things grew wasn't up to me.

All beginnings require the same amount of faith.

Lessons From the Garden

             The past is gone

      The future is uncertain

    The present is magnificent

A Quick Way To Not Give Up When What you Planned Looks Nothing LikeWhat Is

    This is the time of year when I realize that my gardens look nothing like I planned. The continuous color I had envisioned simply didn't happen and one perennial bed looks like an unmowed section of my front lawn. Growing trees and a few windy rain storms wreaked havoc on a few of my favorite blooms.  The cucumbers and the tomatoes are lagging and some critter invited friends over for a lettuce picnic.

Some version of this story happens every year and every year I have this urge to just give up. Here is how I recover when what I planned looks nothing like what is.

Trash the vision

I am all for vision boards and imagining  an amazing future for ourselves. Planning and imagining my garden helped me survive this past winter. I have a dream and I know just what its fruition feels like. However, when we attach ourselves to the dream we forget the most important part of our lives.

Here and Now

I remember being a newly single mother with three children under six. The future looked so frightening and the past hurt beyond measure. One day,clear out of the blue, I started saying "Here and Now" repeatedly.  The thing about 'here and now' is that the future and the past go away. The fear goes the vision goes and life gets to be just as it is. Then the magic happens.

Gratitude.

With the vision gone and your only reality is here and now gratitude just spills everywhere,

Tomatoes and cukes are not doing so great. However, I tried something new this year and planted broccoli. WOWZAS

One garden may be just green but this one is bursting with color.

Life rarely turns out as we planned. however we always have a choice in how we look at it.

Blessings,
Virginia

Wednesdays "Whats growing?"

Peonies  are blooming!

A garage makeover has been started.

An abundance of flowers.

A mess.

My gardening nails and my moms diamond ring:

Just as I remember it on her garden loving hand. 


Blessed!

My Garden. My Teacher

            Love what is blooming.

      Accept and be grateful for what is     done blooming.

Have expectant joy for what is soon to bloom.

Monday's Course in Miracles

My daily spiritual practice includes reading The Course in Miracles, writing, meditating and praying. Each Monday I share the day's lesson from The Course.

Today I seek and find all that I want.. ACIM.

I kept that thought in mind as I headed out to walk my puppy.  Yes it was sleeting.  Yes I had to wear my winter walking gear. Yes winter in spring is getting tiring.

Yet I found all that I wanted:

     

SPRING IS COMING!

A Thought

            My daily spiritual practice includes reading a lesson from The Course of Miracles, meditating and writing in my journal.

This morning's lesson was a doozy:
                                  
               " I can be hurt by nothing but my thoughts" ACIM

This is such a true and simple statement yet so profound and difficult to live by. It really isn't about what is going on around us. It is about how we choose to think about what is going on around us. It was such a great reminder for me to quiet my monkey mind, pay attention and most importantly let things be exactly as they are.

                These breathtaking hibiscus blooms from my garden reminded me as well.

I thought the plant was grossly diseased and needed to be yanked (note the leaves).  I would have missed so much beauty.

Blessings,
Virginia

Still Summer

When the tiger lilies produce their last blooms.

And when the black eyed susans make their first appearance.

The stores start to advertise notebooks and colored pencils

And I shake my head.

I will not say good bye to summer.

I will not get into a frenzy making sure each child has all they need for the 'first day of school'.

There is still summer to be enjoyed.

Unlike the early blooming flowers, the ones starting to show their faces now stay smiling most of August, and some right into September.

They remind me to slow down and enjoy. Summers and gardens go by quickly. Stores are open all year long.

Blessings,
Virginia

Making March Meaningful

March is my least favorite month here in Maine.  It seems to last way too long and my excitement for all things garden is difficult to contain. Here are a few things I do to get through the month:

1. Shopping. In March all things winter are drastically reduced. Yes you will be wearing winter clothes for another month or more.

2. Buying fresh flowers every week. Nothing says spring more than a vase brimming with daffodils.

3. Planning my garden and looking back on last years garden pictures.

4. Ordering my seeds.

5. Forcing forsythias.

6.Spring cleaning. Once the days get warmer I will be outdoors every chance I get.

7. Stocking up on gardening books from the library.

8.Completing indoor projects (see # 6)

9. If all this fails and the snow on the ground is driving you mad you can:

 

 

 

Happy March!
Blessings,
Virginia