What a Garden Gives
Within the realm of “my” garden lies an entire world that I have yet to discover. It feels like for every ounce of myself that I pour into it, it gives me back tenfold. This lies in the simple act of an insect laying eggs on her host plant. A leaf that comes back to life with water after wilting in the hot sun. The joy of witnessing a finch eating a caterpillar off a flowering Salvia. Plants and animals simply living, being present, and doing the only things they know how to do - exist. Without any hesitation. Without any knowledge of a world that so often views them in a negative light. I hope to live my life in this way… to witness, to participate, and to give.
I think what I am describing has no real words. It’s a feeling, an experience of the purest form of joy and presence. Without any expectations to be anything other than who I was always meant to be.
I never was a gardener, but some of my sweetest childhood memories were in my parents’ garden in the mountains. They used old railroad ties to stabilize their front yard slope and create pockets of garden beds on each level. They had big boulders that had been there since before people. And these great big Manzanitas that they tended to and loved. They had wild strawberries that we could go outside and eat right off the ground. I had actually forgotten about a lot of these memories until I was hiking during a big Ceanothus bloom a few years ago - I’m not kidding when I tell you that smelling those flowers literally brought me back to my parents garden as a child.
And maybe that's why these plants have always felt like medicine to me. I have never felt so fully accepted as I have in my own garden. These plants don’t ask for much, only to be tended to and cared for. And in return? They provide me with the greatest gift of all. Unconditional love and a deep sense of place.
I feel loved in my garden.
I hope to always have the privilege of connecting with the land in this way.
Kelsey
