In the garden today digging deep and replenishing soil for transplanting roses . . . out with the strangling roots and sun-robbing vines, and opening up space for plants of my choosing, not just what happens to grow there. I can’t help but think as I dig and prune and thrash and weed – - – this is just like life! You hold onto things that fill space and seem to be part of your plan, but one day you recognize them as what they are. Taking UP space. Taking away from what you want.
What you want is what you have planted of your own choosing.
Not just what is easy, what happens naturally, what came along with the soil.
Today what we want is more sun for the roses, more space for the hydrangeas, and more breathing room so that new ideas can find a place to take root.
I am often asked, “how do you find time to bake bread?” and the answer contains something of this gardening experience in it. The time it takes is the reward itself – the experience is filling and fulfilling, nourishing and stimulating, that it crowds out the strangling roots of depression.
Setting myself the task last week of three days of marathon painting was similar – total immersion in one type of work, working to exhaustion, working through self-doubt, self-criticism, experiencing moments when I felt I was breaking ground into a new understanding of how to paint what I love.
Total immersion in these processes – gardening, baking, painting- crowds out that which does not belong, no longer fits, doesn’t serve.