How Gardening Teaches Patience
The thing about gardening is that you realize you can't rush things. A seed takes a certain amount of time to sprout, no matter what you do. A plant or tree takes a certain amount of time to grow, flower, or bear fruit, no matter what you do. No amount of chemicals or technology can make it go faster. And that's totally OK! Can you imagine? That there is still something in our world today we can't force to go faster? Crazy! Crazy good.
Even weeding is a good teacher of patience. It's always intimidating to look at a giant patch of weeds and realize that it's up to you to take them out. Sure, go ahead and spray some Roundup--poison the planet and your children (born or unborn). But you are missing the best part of weeding! Here is what I do: I take a blanket and a basket, and I get comfortable sitting on the ground. I time it so that it's either early or late in the day, and preferably in the shade, and I start at one end and keep going (moving the blanket along with me) until I am done.
What's so great about that? Well, for one thing, you start to see your garden up close. It's amazing all the living things you come across. You notice plants that weren't there before, and you can decide to let some stay just for fun. But most important, you have time to think. Time to let your mind wander while your hands are busy. Suddenly, you have ideas, insights, happy thoughts, resolution to problems. So when the weeding is done, not only do you have a great sense of accomplishment and your garden looks tons better, but your mind has been weeded too. That just can't be rushed.
This article reminded me of "
Gardening at the Dragon's Gate: At Work in the Wild and Cultivated World."
Perhaps a more appropriate subtitle would have been Zen and the Art of Horticulture Maintenance, since Johnson infuses every aspect of gardening with the philosophy that has been her guiding light for more than 30 years. A Zen Buddhist master, Johnson has served as head gardener for San Francisco’s Green Gulch Farm Center, a place of exceptional tranquility and vibrancy where her daily devotional meditation practices became as essential to the health and productivity of her gardens as they were to her body and soul.
It is not only the "eating" side of the garden that I enjoy, it is the "spiritual" side that drives me to be in the garden every day - pull weeds, talk to my plants, nurture...
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