Besides from a few vegetable plants and the much loved house- plants in my home growing up, my passion for gardening went largely undiscovered until my early twenties, during the time I refer to lovingly as my spiritual crisis.
Immediately after college, my interest in holistic health, a deep longing for personal/spiritual growth and some much appreciated divine intervention, led me to Portland, Oregon and the National College of Naturopathic Medicine. I enrolled in a four-year, Masters of Science program in Chinese Medicine. I found myself swirling and spinning in the knowledge of the ancient Daoists, learning a medicine and way of being that was based largely on living in accordance with nature. I dove head first into a path of inner cultivation, personal healing and self-growth. With everything I thought I knew challenged, I struggled to assimiliate into my being this new way of understanding myself and my world.
And then it hit me. My spiritual crisis. As anyone dedicated to conscious living understands, growth isn't always pretty.
As I began to shed layers of old patterns, stale thinking, and limiting beliefs, I exposed parts of myself that prefered to remain hidden. Long neglected physical and emotional injuries, years of body image and food related issues, unfelt emotions. All bubbling to the surface, wanting love and attention, refusing to be numbed anymore. And while I continued to sit everyday in class, my head filling with more and more amazing knowledge, all I really wanted was to stop thinking. All I really needed was to get out of my head and into my body. Into my heart. I knew that the only way I could become the effective holistic healer that my long and expensive education was gearing me towards was to first take time to love and heal myself.
Not suprisingly, I was craving the feeling of physical, outdoor work. Having been in school for the past 18 years, I wanted time to reconnect with the non-cerebral parts of myself. I wanted to completely understand the Daoist teachings. It wasn't enough to read that certain organ systems corresponded energetically to different seasons; I wanted to viscerally experience these energies. I did not want to think, I wanted to really know.
Several months later, after much agonizing soul searching, I found myself, clad in work boots and overalls, surrounded by the beautiful gardens of Hay House Farm in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. I had been hired by the amazing artist and farmer David Brown, to be his seasonal garden apprentice for the next nine months. That was just the beginning...
So why do I garden? I garden because with every seed I plant, with every plant I love, with every banana peel I dump into my compost pile, I am paying hommage to this earth. I garden because it keeps me healthy and strong and allows me to love and respect my body in a way that no other form of physical excercise does. I garden because the brilliance of a summer perennial garden can keep me inspired for days. I garden because growing my own food has taught me to honor my meals as sacred nourishment, and not just calories to be calculated. I garden professionally because I so desperately want to share the full, feathery beauty of a peony or the pure amazingness of a cucumber dangling from its delicate, prickly vine.
And there are times when I feel lost. Questioning, seeking and aching. So, I garden because I don't know what else to do.
I heal myself with my gardens.
