Nature As Resource

Due to back issues, I could not bend over, sit or twist, but, my love of Nature and gardening continued. I tended the plants that had just been transplanted from a friends garden, forget me knots, by lying down on my side. My husband and I created a whole new landscaping on what had once been bark mulch. I was pretty much the designer, not able to do the heavy lifting. I’ve found that ground covers and other perennials once established are not only beautiful but also keep down the weeds. The forget me nots … I just realized I previously misspelled nots with knots, fitting and metaphorical since the pain in my back often feels like knotted muscles and knives, sensations I’d like to forget but chronically feel. Anyway, we planted them in an area under a century old magnificent maple, wanting them to take over the shaded area at the base and skirt of the tree. I lay down, my face inches from the soil and plants, settling them in after their rushed transplant, tucking in forgotten roots or exposing some of their buried leaves and raking in the compost with my fingers. My friend had donated an entire bed of forget me nots so there were many plants to tend. I lay for hours a day, schooching from one plant to the next. It took about ten days to finish the settling.

My sleeps during that time were nurturing. I couldn’t remember my dreams specifically but I awoke feeling so content and loved, so whole. I had the feeling I had attended some sort of conference, about community. I had received immense and profound wisdom, information and truth. I didn’t know exactly what I was gifted with but I knew the depths of what I felt and the impact. All of what was relayed was non verbal, so not received by the mind, instead, received by the heart and body. After rousing myself each morning I felt enormous gratitude.

This continued each night for about a week. Then as I lay on the ground, the plants beside me, the maple above me, shading me, and its roots fanning out all around, I realized it was the plants, the trees, the ground, the earth that were all communicating with me throughout the day and through the night. I almost broke into tears I was so moved. The immensity of Love, Nurturing and Kindness that I sensed was overwhelming consequently dissolving any sense of separation from the Whole of Life. I wondered if this communication was always going on, though because of the intimacy and consistency with my attention, I was only now noticing it. Interesting to ponder …. and lovely to feel the embrace and resourcing so close at hand.