The Master Gardener

Back to the Blog! After planting a very halfhearted garden in June and removing myself from my blogging practice, I learned a few lessons. Number one...I am a writer despite myself. When I set out with a list of heavy rules...so many pages daily...this is a must! Well...I take the joy out of my process and I loose the juice. When I say juice...I mean the impulse to get up early and do the writing because I love to do it...not because I have to do it. And I want to LOVE what I'm doing because this is it folks...I'm doing my life and I need to love it! Why bother to do otherwise.  I've discovered that I approach my garden season with the same heaviness on my shoulders and rules galore. Who the heck is this rulemaker? Where ever did she take such root within me that she usurps all the joy out of being? I believe she is a child of a strict mother and a boring educational system that systematically strips away the creative colorful impulses of childhood. The damage done is so profound, it takes all of our adult years to heal and recover that playful inner child spirit. She is also the result of an individual that cares too much about what other people think. This double dynamic is the perfect condition for a fruit tart to develope her tart way beyond her fruit! But I have strengthened certain wild muscles while I've been living here in the western mountains of Maine. The self that moved here in 2000 was instinctually wounded and she has healed in many ways. My priorities have changed and I have become so much freer to live my life accordingly. Much of the work that has been demanded of me has been a letting go and a getting rid of things...attitudes...even people. When something doesn't work anymore and it can't be fixed...its time to let go. Much of my work has been inner work...letting go of old conditioning, concerns, the ruminations of a fearful mind and opening myself to being a beginner at things again...having the courage to try anew. My garden is a rich resource of everinforming truths. It teaches me to listen to its daily needs rather than to formulate theoretical plans and go marching in imposing myself on it. Because I injured my shoulder quite severely at the end of winter, I consciously planted less of a garden as an act of selfcare. Planting less seeds translates very directly into less work. I shirked my shoulder quite literally...refusing to shoulder the responsibility of a huge garden...refusing to continue slogging my way through dutiful writes...at first I FELT LIKE A SHIRKER...a developing sloth...a slug-in-training. Note the self imposed labels.

This is what I did this summer. I sat on the porch and watched the birds court and feed. I had long slow cups of coffee in the morning...sharing conversation and comfortable silences with my beloved husband. I did a lot of walking in the woods with my dog Sadie. I breathed. I refused to hurry. I managed to cut down severely on cleaning. I got my plants off to good starts and tended their needs as they asked me in their silent languages. I had lots of open space, air and movement and spent loads of time in the company of trees. I took photos and encountered the wild. I completed my Master Gardener class and had the great pleasure of volunteering weekly to work in the master garden and participate in making the produce available to the hungry. I appreciated and enjoyed the wealth of knowledge shared by the Master Garden instuctor, Barbara Murphy..not to mention having lots of great laughs due to her hearty sense of garden humor. I learned that I LOVE gardeners...and there is something about people who are willing to dig in and do the work of growing that makes my heart sing. And I attended my weekly writing group at Joan Hunter's Fifth House Lodge.  There are just no words for the depth of heart shared in that writing circle weekly. I wrote very little other than the sponanteous writes on Wednesday mornings...but those writes were breathed alive by the reading aloud to present faces. I could see the love...the resonating...tears and laughter...all reflected in the faces of some amazingly beautiful women who dared weekly to expose themselves in trust by putting their thoughts on paper. I guess I took an essential step back, this summer...and the result is a brand new perspective.

This week I harvested my halfhearted garden. And I was crazy busy...3 cucumber seeds put out pounds and pounds of cucumbers. 15 pumpkins grew from my 3 pumpkin seeds. Plenty of tomatoes, green peppers, basil, broccoli, zuchini, cabbages, spinach, chard, carrots, garlic, leeks and onions ...enough to fill my freezer for winter. I had so many cucumbers, I was juicing them up. I don't feel like a master gardener...but I was not left wanting. I gardened less this year and harvested more...and I wrote less but had such joy about it. The biggest truth I learned is that when I put less of myself into it...less thinking, less judgement, less duty, less willfulness...I am able to harvest more love...more joy and more juice!

My mom is now living in a nursing facility. We went to visit recently. She is in a light sunny room with very nice ladies as roomates. The caregivers are loving and attentive. She doesn't have to brave the weather everyday to go to daycare. And my sister can pick up the threads of her own life again. Stephen and I took a little walk on Devereaux Beach in Marblehead after our visit. The salt air, the waves rhythmic music and the peace of the ocean was soothing and deeply appreciated. I gathered some wave worn rocks and much to my surprise...I encountered a canteloupe plant growing in the beachstones. This is WILD, I thought. So I snapped a picture. And I thought...I've been gardening now for 13 years and have never successfully grown a canteloupe here in Bethel Maine. I know it is possible. But there is only one gardener that can grow a canteloupe in beachstones. The only true Master Gardener...is Wild Mother Nature herself.