My garden became a beautiful teacher to understanding the meaning and what it means to nurture. Planting a little garden this past spring with slight fear that it might not grow and even worse die. Seriously---this was one of my first thoughts but my desire was to nurture this garden and work it everyday. I wanted to create a little sanctuary for myself and I just had to ignore those thoughts and try.
I planted my flowers in April. Everyday, I would wake up, make coffee, turn on some nice pleasant music, water my garden and then find myself sitting, sipping coffee and writing in my journey. My 2 year old would come out and be captivated by the bees, birds and then play with his toys. It didn't take long for this morning routine to became my favorite time of the day. Eventually, another fear popped up when someone mentioned to prune my roses. The fear was to cut stems back to help my plant thrive. However, I thought I wouldn't be able to enjoy the flowers, that I would just be left with stems and leaves...no flowers. It took my about a week and I went out to prune my garden which led to a little weeding. You know to my surprise, weeks later, I had more flowers. It was like life telling me..."okay sweetheart now do you get it?" "Pruning and weeding my whole garden are a part of nurturing and you get blessed for it." It is amazing the gifts we take for granite- like good soil, sunshine and water. It wasn't long after that, that my toddler started to get all excited one day and pointed out we had a butterfly in the garden. It was like announcing a celebrity had arrived. For possibly a half an hour or so, which actually was a timeless moment, we watched this butterfly and I realized my garden was thriving. This little butterfly was my messenger that nature was nurturing me and we were growing. Thanks to nature and connecting in the moment I am learning the gift of nurture. It is expanding and growing inside daily me like my garden.
