Faith, spirit, and nature

Some days, things just fall into place. You feel whole, connected. Your body seems to hum with an energy that is but isn't there. Something so beautiful and perfect you feel your eyes tear up, your heart swells, and an overwhelming sense of peace settles around your shoulders like a favorite warm blanket. 

Yesterday, the air reminded me of Scotland, humid, but cool and breezy. Scotland was the first place I truly felt this overwhelming surety of who I am, and what it means to be me. To the point my soul cried "This is home, I am home!". The sense that my spirit, my body, and my mind were in sync, and for a brief moment, even the stars and time could move nothing unless I willed it. I felt what I have long believed, in so profound of a moment, that it no longer was a belief, but became a soul deep knowledge. 

Yesterday, I had a similar feeling, not as strong, but an echo of what I had felt before. Even if we hadn't already planned it, I would have found myself outside and in the garden, or the woods. Barefoot, bare hands, sinking into the damp ground, with the breeze a gentle brush against the face. 

K came over, and we got the side bed weeded and planted. We were able to put corn, green beans, acorn squash, tomatoes, basil, carrots and onions in the ground. We will be putting some eggplant in as well in the side garden. The carrots, tomatoes, and basil are all showing, but nothing else will sprout for a while yet. I am looking forward to dinners made with freshly picked food, shared with loved ones. 

Some people may wonder why go through the trouble of doing all this when you can just buy it. Well, there's many reasons, but only a few are very important to me.

The most important is that for me, working in the garden is very spiritual. Some people pray, some people meditate, some dance, or use rhythm and find that solace the soul is looking for. Gardens, nearby woodlands, and rivers have always been my solace. There is a sense of wonder, a sense of peace when in nature. It's where we came from, before there were cities, before there were modern conveniences, we lived in and with nature. There is a harmony that I have not found elsewhere. When you let nature set the pace of life, life is more full. There's less stress, and it's easier to accept that what will happen will happen, and we can't control everything, as much as some of us may want to. 

Part of the spiritual aspect is all of the sensory input, that when I focus on it, or simply sit surrounded by it creates a very humbling feeling. As humans, we tend to forget how important the earth around us is and that in one way or another we all depend on nature. Getting my hands into the soil, knowing that what I have my hands in provides life to the plants that will be put there, and thus to me. The scent of the plants is to me the scent of life. The sound of the breeze, and the air around me that carries the sound of leaves rustling, or birds singing, lifts my spirit. 

Another reason this is so special to me, is that working with the earth reminds me of loved ones, and cherished memories. Memories that come bursting through the misty reaches of my mind to stand bold, front and center when I'm in nature. Remembering my mother, and my grandmother taking walks and pointing out different plants, with my mother sometimes explaining a medicinal use of the plant if she knew it. Memories of my grandfather carefully saving and cataloging seeds from his favorite plants, or taking the time and care to paint leaves of prized plants one at a time to protect them from some pest, or blight. Friends that I remember talking to their plants, encouraging them grow, and thrive, and the excited phone calls when a bloom appeared. 

http://tattoos-and-doodles.blogspot.com/2012/01/triskel-plant.html

Another is it fills a special part in my heart. My faith. My belief that life is sacred, and deserving of reverence. As a Druid, there is so much more than simply having a spiritual connection, there is an underlying, fundamental belief, in love, wisdom, and creativity, all of which I find in the garden. The proof that our lives are more connected than they appear on the surface. The peace that is present when all is in harmony. In my experience, some of the most wonderful moments of freeing the soul have been found setting roots into the soil.

All of this sums up to the fact that I do this because it's who I am. 

Gardening, Family, Life, and Feeding the birds

OK, so this post has been in the works for over two months now, so it'll be a long one. Some info and pictures are at least two months old, but still worth adding.

In one of my earlier posts "Reflections, A New Year, and New Experiments, I mentioned something about goals I had for the year. One of those was growing and canning more of our own food. To that end, we have been working on getting some vegetable beds ready to grow yummy tomatoes, and corn, and squash, and green beans among many other things.

Since our lives are fairly busy right now, and we have friends who want to grow their own veggies too, we've been sharing the work. K and her daughter have been coming over and helping clear out rocks....lots and lots of rocks, and plant seedlings, all while teaching her adorable little lady bug about playing in the dirt, playing in the water from the hose, and splashing in the puddles made by the hose.

Dirty bottom, and playing in the hose water :)

One of the delays in working in the garden was the cracking, and spewing forth of water from our 75 gallon fish tank on April 26th. Probably about 45 minutes or so after my husband left for work, and after I had been asleep about 4 hours. Thinking back now, it was rather comical. To my sleeping brain, the first crack sounded like the linen cupboard door being closed, so I just rolled over and went back to sleep. Some time later, probably about 5 or 10 minutes, I heard another crack, groaned and rolled over wondering what on earth he was getting in the cupboard for again, then I heard the sound of liquid running and splashing....and it didn't stop. I yelled out "Please tell me that's you going to the bathroom?!" silence....well (random string of expletives).

So I get up and check the bathroom and nothing, head out to living room and as I'm walking down the hall I realize my cat is sitting on the arm of the couch staring raptly at the fish tank. As I walk past the tank I feel cold, wet, squishy carpet, and look down to see 5 streams of water coming out of the bottom back of the tank! Hence the comical running around trying to figure out what to do save the water, the fish and the floor, which at this point splashed when I stepped on it, since about 1/4 of the water was on the floor.

The crack going from bottom right to the top of the tank. Still have the pretty backing on.

I managed to grab one of those 5 gallon buckets and catch one stream of water that was wicking around and out the side, but I had to figure out a way to channel the water that was still pouring out the back, right towards the power outlets. First thing I saw...was a gallon ziplock bag....don't know why I thought that would work, but after standing there for about a minute trying to figure out how to get it to stay, I decided that was BS. I went to the kitchen and grabbed our small cutting board and managed to wedge that between the tank and the wall and redirect the water into the bucket, which was filling up really fast. So while that was filling I called the hubby to get him to come home. Then called K and the conversation went something like this...

K: Hi (cautiously because I normally don't call that early)
Me: Do you have towels (Duh...they wouldn't)
K: Yeah, I have a lot of towels. Why?
Me: My fish tank sprung a leak....
K: What!? Ok I'll grab my towels, and I have this little green that I can grab and suck water out of the floor
Me: That sounds great...

So our day that Friday revolved around sucking fish water out of the tank, and the floor. Well, at least the floor got a good scrubbing, courtesy of A bringing a brand spankin new carpet cleaner over, and the  fish tank got a thorough cleaning. We got a new tank, and actually got pretty lucky. We got a new 75 gallon tank, stand, lid and light for about $500.00 from a local pet store. Still a hefty chunk to have to drop like that, but we had to put the fish somewhere, and the tub wasn't an option!

New tank, still a little cloudy after transferring all the fish and decorations over. The guy below is our bottom feeder....aptly named Moby in the old tank. Yes, he takes up over half of the 23 inches of the tank from top to bottom. Probably closer to 20 when you count the pebbles on the bottom.

We've managed to chisel and scrounge out two beds. A small one between our driveway and a larger one at the back of our house. We realized that the one at the back of the house actually ends up in the shade by about 2:30 right now. Our neighbor's trees are hugely tall, and without the leaves, we didn't notice how far the shadows are thrown.  I'm confident that as we get further into summer, and the sun shifts, it'll be more in the sun.

So, we got both beds tilled, fertilized, and some peat moss turned in to the soil in an effort to break up the clay, and add some nutrients. The side bed is going to be home to some corn, and tomatoes, and green beans, and squash. The back bed pictured above is going to be home to lots of stuff, including zucchini, cucumbers, herbs, onions, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, spaghetti squash, and more that I can't think of at the moment.

Fast forward about a month, life continues to throw curve balls our way, including finding out we need to completely replace our AC unit (which if you notice is in the middle of the vegetable bed against the house.....yeah anyone else see tender young plants getting squashed by the workmen? Not intentionally of course!

Of course during all of this, I had a wish granted, and in the manner of wishes, not in a way I expected. Mid March I ended up taking over watching A's boys while she was at work. Not a week or so before I was thinking, "I'd really love to spend more time with A and her two kids". Yea...be careful what you wish for!

One week, we went to a local park and fed the birds! Both the boys and I ended up with little birds on our hands pecking seeds up! It was one of those rare, magical moments that just resonates with a hidden place in your soul. 

For as much as those kids push, and try to get what they want (what kid doesn't?) I love them. There were definitely the 'Aww' moments, sporadic at first, but with increasing frequency towards the end. Last Monday, the youngest practically marched up to me and said "We (his brother and himself) should do the chores so you guys can rest". Mom's voice popped into my head "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth" (What does that really mean any way??) so I jumped on the chance. They came up with a list of chores they could do. This listed included:

Run the vacuum

Clean the cat liter box

Clean off table after dinner

Take out trash/recyclables

Help with laundry

Water the plants

Pick up and organize the shoes by the front door

Help with dishes

Set the table

sweep the kitchen

pick up trash

pick  up toys

read a book

pick up and put back pillows and blankets on couch

Well I added the read the book one ;). What we did was make a chore cup, printed out the chores and cut them up. Then the boys would each pull a chore out of the cup, do it, and race to see who got done first, then pull the next one out until they were all done! I also made little lucky stars for them to transfer, along with the completed chore to the completed cup. The rule was that if they did all their chores, all week, and without complaining, they would be allowed to play video games on the weekend. We did this all week and it worked wonderfully. A is continuing this even though I'm not watching them anymore. 

Sorry this took so long to get up, but here it is in all it's un-edited glory! I'll be working on another post shortly about the garden, and how it's progressing.

Dreams are one of the driving factors of life. Dreams of the future, unfulfilled dreams, even nightmares, all drive us in one direction or another. It's up to us to choose which dreams to chase, and which need to be left behind.