Soul garden

On days like today I have such a deep need to ground myself. I need to be outside: dreaming, designing, pruning, digging the soil, planting. Even inside I want only to prepare my vegetable and herb seeds, to nurture them in growth. I know I can remove myself from the noise of the outside world when I am connecting with my garden, magic happens there.  

For me it has been  a week of extremes - of not being able to see the wood for the trees and then not being able to see the trees, only a vast, dense forest. However, as I sit here today and continue reading Women Who Run with Wolves, these words speaking of the connection with the ancient wild woman,  dance out at me vividly:

“I’m always taken by how deeply women like to dig in the earth. They plant bulbs for the spring. They poke blackened fingers into mucky soil, transplanting sharp smelling tomato plants. I think they are digging down into the two million year old woman. They are looking for her toes and paws. They want her for a present to themselves, for with her they feel of a piece and at peace.... You could even say there is a religion of garden...”

Clarissa Pinkola Estes

In connection with this theme my good friend Lis, of Dandelion Seeds and Dreams, recently wrote about developing her life as a rich English garden; each bed with its individual unique beauty, its own appeal, with its own cycles and rhythms, each with an element of  wildness within a subtle structured layout.  At the heart of her garden she writes, are her core values and priorities. What a beautiful analogy, don’t you think? Please take a look at the whole post here, it is delicious. I have thought about these words often over the last week,whilst stealing a few quiet minutes at the end of a hectic day, and have caught myself smiling. The power of beautiful words :)