Deep in the heart of the jungle

I love my garden. Too often, my focus is on the future rather than in the present: what will I plant (roses or magnolias in the side bed; native shrubs or sunflowers against the back fence? - such awful dilemmas!); what needs to be done and when, and how will I find the time? I have a tendency to think about my garden in terms of getting things done, especially when my life becomes a series of getting things done, as it currently is. But of course, my joy comes not from ticking off an item on the "to plant in October" list but from being physically and mentally in the moment I am in.

When I focus down, I am struck by the small things - the mix of flowers, the growing vegetables, the changing needs of the space. I fall in love with the minutiae of my land.





When I look up I sometimes catch my breath at the abundance of my garden - all that green and promise, all the good things to eat and the sanctuary it offers to me and the critters who share the space.



I'm also struck that Al's reservations about the number of plants I squeeze into the space are not unfounded. This summer, there's a good chance we're going to lose the girls in there. They'll emerge two weeks later, brown and wild, bellies stuffed with raspberries, peaches and beans.





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Today in yoga we did an extended series of oms, lasting a good five minutes. Such an amazing set of vibrations as the group slipped into harmony. And in my imagination, vibrant and real, beans and passionfruit vines climbed teepee supports and exploded in whirls of greens, growing into a huge and flowering tree. Very 70s, very trippy. That's what you get when a gardener pushes herself perhaps just a little too hard in yoga, I guess. I'm off to stick something into the ground, to make this happen.