Have you ever found yourself overwhelmed with indecision? In-between this and that? Often, it follows after loss (e.g., death, break-up of a relationship, job change, health change) or conclusion of some significant period - a threshold or milestone (e.g., graduation, promotion, retirement, empty-nesting, moving). It could be triggering the big stuff like questions about vocation, location, or personal identity renovation that lie dormant until something significant happens to jar them back into awareness.
The effects of chronic indecision could take the form of relationship woes, job dilemmas, destination hesitation, or analysis paralysis. You just can't seem to get off the dime. Or it could be as mundane as clothing and hair style changes, or choosing an item off a menu, and you still feel mired in the muck. And this stuck-in-the-middle feeling of hopeless indecision keeps you feeling overwhelmed and stultified - while feeling momentarily safe - from the unholy terror of making the "wrong" decision. What does it feel like to be so mired in indecision?
Spiritual constipation
Mental and emotional paralysis
Intellectual sludge
Fortunately, Nature has an antidote for that! Gardening, beginning with...
Composting! It's key to navigating change, but it's more than just saving scraps. It's transforming life.
Imagine what happens inside spring bulbs when planted in the autumn, tips up, roots down, curled tightly in upon themselves, burrowing into healthy soil rife with life and possibility. Autumn rains and winds pelt the earth, tucking warm leaf detritus over the topsoil to add a layer of protection. The winter's frozen swaddle is cradling the bulb gently, until it barely moves, to lull the dormant life into deeper rest. The tight coil protects the miraculous seed, waiting, waiting. Then come Spring's longer days - with a magic sunlight elixir, moderating temps and early rains. Spring's alchemy will coax that beautiful bulb with an invitation to open, open, until it bursts open beneath the surface - still waiting, waiting to emerge above the topsoil. What gorgeous beauty, fragrance, and color will dance when the stalk stretches valiantly through the softened soil, extending its tendrils into the waiting embrace of warmth, moisture, and light?
"Like a suspension in time, the protected space of a garden allows our inner world and the outer world to coexist free from the pressures of everyday life. Gardens in this sense offer us an in-between space which can be a meeting place for our innermost, dream-infused selves and the real physical world. This kind of blurring of boundaries is what Donald Winnicott called a 'transitional' area of experience. Transitional processes allow us to imaginatively endow the world and feel part of something larger than ourselves. They are central to children's play, and in adult life they play a role in the creative arts and in religion." (Sue Stewart-Smith, The Well-Gardened Mind: The Restorative Power of Nature; New York: Simon & Schuster, 2021)
It's no secret - the power of the Garden is its transformative energy! Gardens are icons of healthy becoming. They are foundational to sacred stories of origin for this reason. They represent the connection between our sacred interior life - the sanctuary of our home and our soul's anchor - with the aspirations and dreams of our outer life - the manifold connections we have with creation and the big, mysterious universe. It's where our artistry, intentionality, and spiritual depth fully intersect.
Plant a cabbage row. See it grow.
Plant the milkweed. It fits the Monarch needs.
Plant your asters. What comes after?
Flavor, Color, Gorgeous New Life!
The Garden awakens us to possibility. It's that simple. The Garden takes us from what we are now to what we are becoming.
By activating our full sensorium, the Garden invigorates us. Being outside lowers blood pressure, moderates respiration, and lifts anxiety and depression. The health benefits of direct soil contact, (UV protected) sunlight exposure, complementary arbor respiration, and connection with our plant- and creature-kin to deepen our learning and appreciation of our Mother Tongue (i.e., Earth language) is well-documented.
We go outside to flourish inside. Earth is our womb and our tomb. Depth of imagination is cultivated by what we sow, how we tend and nurture, and what surprises come from the mycelial connections beneath the surface. We are so connected beyond our own conscious apprehension, which is why artists, musicians, poets, lovers, dreamers, and kids spend so much time outside. Are they finding answers? Perhaps not. Perhaps they are cultivating their imagination and creativity. Perhaps there is a shift in perspective which allows for better, deeper, fuller, more complex, more nuanced questions where new paradigms coexist with curiosity and wonder. Like a blank canvas or a sheet of manuscript paper, the Garden provides that cocoon for introspection, creativity, and authentic joy.
How does the Garden help us navigate transition? It gives us a conceptual framework, as well as practical disciplinary tools for cultivating connection.
Much of our inability to lean into and trust what's opening ahead of us has to do with fear of the unknown, and facing it alone. Many have an intuitive sense that what they are experiencing right now, even though it may be past its prime, functionally obsolete, rotten, decaying, or in serious need of composting, it is somehow considered "safe" because they know it from experience. They have learned how to manage (maybe successfully, or healthfully, maybe not) the known. The unknown is scary.
The Garden teaches openness to what is unknown - what has not yet grown to fullness, what is still coming, not yet ripe, not quite blossomed. The very act of planting seeds, saplings and seedlings, nourishing them with compost, watering deeply, mulching, weeding and pruning when necessary, connects us physically and psychologically with the "normalcy" of process, of becoming. It transforms our fear into experiential wisdom that is accustomed to constant sensory awareness, and waiting in joyful hope. Gardens teach us to embrace surprise, to enjoy the unexpected improvisations of Nature.
Let's take a practical example: Knowing when it's time to move. The parental units are both working income-necessary jobs, managing kids' school and extracurricular schedules, various health challenges, and trying to maintain their own primary relationship by cultivating hobbies, volunteering their service together as a family, having some fun, and being good neighbors. They're exhausted. The castle is too crowded, cluttered and chaotic. The kids' stuff is taking over everywhere. Even with creative re-purposing, paring down and donating excess, they've outgrown the starter home they loved when it was just them and one little one.
They can imagine what might lie ahead, but they're afraid to leave what they've outgrown. They need a move-in-ready, larger home that will be close to the kids' schools, but still in proximity to their sometimes in-person jobs, and large enough to accommodate an extra home office when one or both work remotely. And they don't want to jump too soon because of interest rates, leaving their own low mortgage rate for a serious increase. They're getting through the first few months of their third little one who is going to be out of the baby bed by... tomorrow. It's just too much of a decision to know what, when, and how. So, they procrastinate and continue in the muddle until one day, one of the kids trips on the table leg climbing to get to the cereal and lands on the other kid's volcano diorama for school. Broken tooth, busted baking soda/vinegar project, crying, blaming, and everything in-between.
And there's the operative concept: They are in-between, and can't seem to move to their next way of being family to manage the clutter and chaos. They are stuck in-between.
Enter the Garden. No, really. Enter the Garden, mi familia!
With the volcano prematurely erupted, parents and kids together leave the confines of what isn't working inside and go outside to shift perspective; they go into the Garden. They get out their hand trowels, hose, and buckets, and begin weeding and watering. The parents and kids notice new sprouts. They are seeing what's growing, what's struggling, what needs water, compost, and mulch, and take it step by step. "Oh, look! That pollinator variety is coming! There's a butterfly!" Yay! "Yeah, but that veggie patch looks deplorable. What is happening to our carrots?"
They call their neighbor with a green thumb who is particularly good at cultivating the veggies they're trying to grow, and pretty soon, neighbor after neighbor turns up, holding the baby, throwing the ball to the dog, offering suggestions and help. Someone brings over a cooler. Someone else gets grilling. They're laughing at the sheer spontaneity of the day's events. Now the neighbor kids are all there, the hose is employed for a water-blast, splashing and running around with the canine-kin, playing with full-on imagination, having fun! Everybody remembers what's really important in an authentic moment, when senses are heightened, stories are flowing, and bodies and souls are refreshed from the energy of Nature and community. This is what defines our lives, these moments. Connection is everything.
After everyone leaves, it hits them. They experience an energetic shift, replacing their fear and dread of moving with possibility and excitement. Their conundrum about moving comes into sharp focus. They don't want to leave the neighborhood and their neighbors, just find a bigger home in close proximity. They put the idea out in the neighborhood and connect with their realtor, who invites all their neighbors to the Open House when their home goes on the market. One of their neighbors' relatives is down-sizing and they only live a few blocks away. They are about to put a home on the market that might be perfect for a family needing a move-in ready larger home. Thank You. Now, deep bow.
Connection is everything. Gardens give us a liminal (in-between) space for full sensory awareness, shifts in perspective, and creativity. They teach us that focusing our energy outside our self-preoccupation and caring for life as it is unfolding makes it possible for us to emerge from patterns/habits/ways of thinking that are not helping, or missing the mark.
Gardens have a way of healing our bodily and spiritual energy, giving us a boost to our immune, respiratory, circulatory, and digestive systems, not to mention a healthy antidote to anxiety and depression, and an increase in feelings of gratitude and wonder. Composting and gardening make emergent life possible.
Gardens help us remember how life is fundamentally connected, not disparate, disintegrating "info overloads," reduceable to zeroes and ones, or superfluous sound bytes that have neither depth nor nuance. Gardens bring color and flavor and aroma. They bring joy in what is unfolding. They teach us the discipline of paying attention and fostering connection. And they remind us that our calling to make a significant change, become more fully ourselves, and ultimately to grow into who we are becoming is finding where our "deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." (F. Buechner)
So, next time you're in a quandary, go outside. Get your Garden on! You may find the energies of Love and connection are more powerful than antipathy and inertia. And you may find companionship in the unknown!
Listen
Touch
Taste
Smell
See
Read the room. Nature is calling!
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