accidentally gardening

On top of the bodywork, stretching and moving, breathing and praying, working and sitting in the garden is a huge part of what is working in my life.  It's crazy too, because I wasn't raised with this.  I can't tell you how to make something stay alive, let alone how to nurture a plant from a tiny seed into something that I can eat for dinner.  Regardless of how little I know, I'm doing it.  We will harvest squash from the front planter in a few days.

Plants just want to grow; all we have to do is give them space.  The reason I have squash and cucumbers and a sunflower and melons growing at my house is simply that they decided to be there.  

Here's the story:  I spent all day clearing out an invasive plant from a plot in front of my house.  Once it was gone I covered the dirt with some compost from our backyard, then covered the compost with leaves for mulch and thought to myself, "Well, I'll get around to planting that bed later.  At least it will have some good nutrition in the meantime."  I then forgot entirely about it, and two weeks later I had a vegetable garden!  The seeds left in the compost put down roots and sprang up as volunteers.  Volunteers!  Free food!  You should see it, it is lush and green and healthy and exuding life, abundance, and generosity.

Nature is growing and regenerating and providing health all the time.  Health for the soil and health for humans in the form of nutrition and cleaner, wetter, more oxygenated air.

Nurturing edible plants is part of the human condition for survival.  The fact that we feel we don't know how to do it is just a symptom of our over-specialized social hierarchy.  The plants have something to offer us,  and all we have to do is listen.  Caring for food plants connects us to the earth that nourishes the plants themselves, and somehow, too, it is connecting me to myself and my potential and my ability to be free.

You know the feeling of eating a strawberry or tomato right out of your own yard or that of someone you love? Or eating a basil leaf off a plant growing in a pot on your kitchen table?  Even such simple acts can be almost ecstatic.  What is it about growing it yourself that draws out the flavors and textures so gracefully?

What we put in to our bodies is what we get out.  You can put in commitment and attention and gratitude for the nonsensical giving energy of the soil or you can put in hurry and avoidance and savvy marketing in the place of substance. (Another "nutritious" brown bar in a bright, sealed baggy?)

There is a whole lot of in between here, obviously.  I'm not telling anyone to stop eating something that works for them.  Just try to put something homegrown in your mouth and see how it feels.  Taste the love of the person who cared for it.  See if you can imagine yourself putting your own love into a plant and then eating its fruits.  Love is good for everyone.