I have been having the best time working in the backyard! It feels so good to work with the soil, see what is coming up, what hasn't survived, and what is to come. I have my garden protocol: 1. I stop and just take it all in, just open my gaze and try to absorb it all. 2. I start pulling up the horse tails from the lava rock, hawk altar, Lovey drinking bath (a site to behold!! I'm giggling just typing this. She has to almost stand on her front tippy toes and stretch her neck to get the right angle to tap that tongue in that nice rain water..adorns).
I'm one that actually loves the look of horse tails. I find the way they dance with the wind so beautiful and soothing. So, I just pull the bulk of them out and leave sweet little stands of them throughout the waterfall of ivy that slowly falls towards the house. Natural selection by my hand. Sometimes, it makes me feel weird, like I'm doing a really bad thing saying that this one can stay but that one has to go.
And, why am I trained to see that weed or the other two or three native weed/plants as something I should not allow to be growing in my yard, where it is clearly doing so well?
3.After I finish with the horse tails, I wander across the stage to the arugula garden and marvel at the clump of forget me nots taking over. I give them leave until the bloom, then I'll thin them out. The azalea grabs my attention with its browning and sticky blossoms begging me to free them from their slow embarrassing drop to the ground. As quickly as I can I am 'dead heading' them as my old boss Mister Speake used to tell me. I hear him a lot when I'm in the garden. It brings me comfort.
4.I'm finally growing some sweet peas this year!! They are my favorite...sigh. Time to plant. I have some starts and some seeds. Working my hands in the soil is my meditation. Feeling the richness, and in other spots the clay and rocks. All of it there and fostering growth of all things. Mother Earth does not discriminate about who can grow where. If you can make it up and out, do it!!
5. I recognize myself as the seed I've placed in the soil, it is up to the seed to make the push to the surface. Sometimes we feel like it is too much. It is hard work growing and pushing past the earth above us. Maybe we get stuck, or we have to grow up and around another root and we break the surface but don't look as good as we should. Will we make the 'you can stay' list?
We are all worthy of growth. We are worth taking that chance and pushing up and out and fluttering and 
growing in the light of the sun and the kiss of the breeze...dear God, I just heard Karen Carprnter singing in the back of my mind. I love being me!! And by me I mean gay, because honey, I just have the best time (wink). Even when I am scared to walk out, I walk out tall and proud and when I feel the pressure of the words that get uttered, I just breathe into my feet and reach for the earth as I remember that I am still growing and I can push up and out and over this too. Ain't life grand!
As always, if we pass on the street, or anywhere, know that I see you and I love you and the beauty you bring to this glorious town we live in.
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