Good lord it’s Friday already!
I’ve been working away on a big, crazy garden project for the last several weeks. It involves digging out all the grass in my front boulevard and planting perennials and other lovely things. I’m alllllmost at the halfway point (I can only give it about an hour a day before my knees start to wobble). And it’s looking… Well, it’s looking like crap, frankly, but that’s the fun of gardening, isn’t it? It’s a collaboration between you and the plants and the soil and the bugs. This is something I’m finally beginning to understand – that it’s not me imposing my will on them, it’s all of us working together to make something wonderful.
And as I start to understand this, I’m learning to step back and listen. I’m learning patience (which if you know me at all, you’ll know is some kind of miracle). Because if you practice patience, if you listen to what it’s telling you, you stand a much better chance of ending up with a lovely, thriving garden filled with happy, healthy plants.
An example: I bought some miniature irises at an auction two years ago and planted them in two different spots out front. The ones that are on the boulevard flowered this year. The ones beside the porch where it’s shady, didn’t. So I transplanted those. They seem happier already.
As if that isn’t enough work and learning for one summer, (or as one of my neighbours said the other day as I was digging and sweating, “Whoa! Now THAT’S a project!!!!”) we’ve also volunteered our backyard to the Stratford Urban Farming Experiment. It’s a brilliant concept. Homeowners offer up their plots of land. Volunteers come out and prepare and plant the beds. The homeowners are in charge of watering, weeding and reporting when things are ready for harvest or if something alarming happens. And then the food is split among the homeowners, the volunteers and the local food bank. I can’t even keep track of how many wins there are in this scenario.
Our garden manager stopped in for a visit the other day. I was nervous about the weeding and wanted someone to tell me what should stay and what should go. She duly pointed out which was which and then asked, “Have you never grown vegetables before?” And I realized that, no, I haven’t, aside from the occasional tomato.
Which, fine, whatever. While I highly recommend getting out and getting your hands in the dirt, learning what a carrot looks like as it starts to poke its tiny fuzzy greenery above ground, learn what plants need and how crazy prolific the earth can be if we just shut up and get out of the way, I also want to say what a difference the name of that group is making in my gardening efforts and in my life. Heather, the woman who started the group will quietly say, “Well, it’s an experiment. So if it doesn’t work…” Which is soooo incredibly freeing!
Now, when I move my plants around, or try making my own mulch by sending my old journals and newspapers through the shredder, leading visitors to ask, “What’s with the confetti?” (love ya, Douglass!) I can relax. Because it’s just an experiment and if it doesn’t work, I’ll clean up the mess and try something else.
This in addition to my Reiki instructor who emphasises that, yes, we move energy, yes we try to help people, but the word she uses over and over again is Play. I play with the energy. I play with the handmade cards that I’m selling. I play outside with my garden. I try experiments. Playfully. It’ll go off in directions I don’t expect. There will be results I can’t forsee. And that’s fine and it’s good and it’s delightful, even the disappointments, because there’s no pressure in play. We expect things to blow up when we run experiments. We know we’ll run another one. We don’t want play to have an end point.
There’s a lot of power in those words, Play and Experiment. I’d like you to try them out in your life and then please let me know what happens.
Have a lovely weekend everyone!
Well hello there! It’s been awhile, hasn’t it? Sorry about that. I’ve had a bunch of thoughts running around in my head lately, but none of them would settle down long enough to become an actual post.
I’ve also been doing a lot of gardening – digging all the grass out of my front boulevard and trying to turn it into something pretty and low-maintenance. It’s a hellish amount of work, but it’s coming along and percolating more thoughts for more posts in the future. And you should see my biceps!!!
Anyway…
In part 1 of this ramble I mentioned that I played with the energy in someone’s shoulder and they started to see opportunities where none had been before. That someone was my lovely husband and the opportunities are all the things that needed to come together for him to be able to open a bakery. It’s something he’s been trying to do for nearly three years now and there was always something missing. He could find a space at a reasonable rent, but couldn’t find the ovens he needed. Or he had the ovens, but nowhere to put them. It was really frustrating. Painful at times.
But things have come together. He’s signed the lease on the bake space, has a line on the ovens, places lined up to sell to. And customers lined up drooling and waiting to buy – Alan makes really good bread.
So am I claiming that this all came about through the power of Reiki? Yes, totally, because it makes him roll his eyes every time I do and how fun is that???
Seriously, though. I can’t claim that it’s all down to the Reiki. Alan was doing his homework. He was looking and trying. I just find it really interesting that none of that was moving the dream forward and after a couple of treatments, Presto!
Before you write me off completely, let me tell you what I think might have happened.
Alan has a sore shoulder – an injury that keeps flaring up every time he does ‘this’. We haven’t figured out what ‘this’ is so that he can stop doing it, but an hour on the Reiki table and he feels better. At least until he does ‘this’ again…
Pain depletes our energy really really quickly. Injuries need to heal and that takes energy. Relieving the pain, even for just a little while frees up some of that energy, lets you be more alert, lets you see opportunity, lets you use your problem-solving skills.
Energy interconnects with everything. Is the connection that we can’t see. Is the reason making your shoulder feel better can help your dreams fall into your lap like a ripe plum.
So if your life isn’t moving ahead the way you’d like it to, maybe you could try taking care of the thing that seems inconsequential, but is constantly throbbing away in the background, hurting you and stealing away your energy.
Hello!
After the amazing response to my last post, I needed some quiet time. Thank you all so much for your lovely comments and emails. I am humbled and thrilled. If you haven’t read through the comments, I highly recommend you do – we have an amazing community here.
I found a couple of things this past week that I’d like to share with you.
The lovely Leah Shapiro pointed me to David Rendall. His amazing idea is that instead of trying to change ourselves, to mold and shape and force ourselves to fit the circumstances around us, especially in education and careers, we should just reject the things that don’t suit us and keep looking for the situation that works. This from a man who was diagnosed with ADHD and is now living a life he loves, one that is perfectly suited to his high energy and shifting focus. Brilliant! I really love this post in which he makes the case that we actually can be successful by avoiding the things we don’t like.
And speaking of amazing, my friend Noreen (the Queen of Amazing Possibilities) has launched The Paradox Experience “An intensive 15-week programme that will help you shift effortlessly and powerfully into mastery, ease and flow”. This looks SO good. If you feel like it’s time for big-time changes head on over and have a look. There’s even a video so you can see how lovely it would be to work with Noreen!
That’s it for today. If any of you have any amazingness to share, please let me know!
My sister Eileen died 14 years ago today, after an excruciating night, from Hepatitis B, a disease she was never supposed to catch, that once caught, was never supposed to kill her.
Her death ended a part of my life. The safe part. The part that did not yet know grief.
And here’s the thing ab0ut grief (I think about it a lot in May, what with Mother’s Day and Eileen’s anniversary). It’s not when life is crap that you feel it most. Not after the initial flush, anyway. Once it’s faded, you face the bad times bravely. And alone. It’s the good times that almost kill you. They’re the times you want to get on the phone, or jump in the car and go share your joy, shout your glad tidings to the ones you’ve loved. And lost.
And just when you think it’s over and you’ve put the worst of it behind you, something happens along and kapblooie, you’re right back at it. Grieving.
We all mark these things in our own way. My aunt lights a candle every year on the anniversary of my cousin Deanie’s death. My mother didn’t believe in candles or shrines or marking the day. I can remember a moment of awkward silence the first time I saw a photo of my sister Patty, who died before I was born, and asked “who’s that?”
You learn to respect these differences, to tread carefully the land around people’s hearts.
After 14 years, grief gets a little raggedy. Something that those who don’t know it, don’t know you, didn’t know her might think you should cast off, be done with. But after 14 years, you have so little else left of this person who once meant the world to you. Everything else has been worn down and misplaced. Lost. After 14 years, grief is really all you have left to give. And so you give it freely. And you celebrate it, with tears and candles and weird Facebooks posts that maybe three people in the whole world will understand.
Because it is a part of life. The part that sucks. The part that makes us human.
