Thursday, May 29, 2008

Lessons From the Garden

Life is a lot like a garden. Ever-changing. Never perfect. Full of colour and texture. It's hard work, but rewarding.

Like life, a garden provides pleasure and beauty alongside sadness and disaster.

Scattering the Seeds


We sew seeds in life every day; seeds of friendship and enmity, of success and failure, of joy and despair.


Sometimes we sew them accidentally.

Sometimes we choose to sew the wrong seeds.

Sometimes the seeds we sew will die or turn out very differently to the way we had expected.


Sometimes seeds grow that we didn't sew ourselves.


Sometimes we sew the right seeds in the wrong place and they struggle to thrive. Or we call them weeds, tear them out and throw them away.


Sometimes we sew seeds and don't nurture them properly. We feed them with worry and water them with doubt. Or we neglect them and the weeds take over.


But when we sew the right seeds in the right place and we nurture them often, with just a little love and attention, the result is incredible. Little seeds soon become flowers of amazing, awesome, powerful beauty. Beauty to take your breath away. Beauty to melt your heart or soothe your soul.

As a flower scatters its seeds to spread beauty through a garden, we can scatter seeds of tolerance and compassion. Or positive thinking. Or creativity. Or justice.


Making the Most of What We Have


Creating a garden is all about working with what we have. We cannot change the location or the weather or the soil, just as we cannot change who we are, where we came from or what we have to work with in our lives right now.


But we can work with nature to create something healthy and happy.


We can work hard to prepare the ground and provide for needs.

We can choose to plant things that will thrive.


We can adapt to changes.


And we can change the way we look at it ...


Choosing Our Perspective


If we don't like the view, then we can easily change it. We can uproot and replant things. We can grow new things. We can take down fences and build benches. (And weave hearts.)


We can change the view or we can change the direction in which we look. We can decide to go and sit in a different part of the garden and appreciate a different view.


We can change the view or we can change the way we look at it. The wider picture, the smallest details; both are as important in the garden as they are in life. Looking at something from a different angle, from closer or further away, can make a big difference to the way we perceive it.


We can change the view or we can change ourselves.


Lessons From the Garden


There is a time for everything. And everything has its time.


Things happen. Not everything goes to plan. (Often, things work out even better than planned.)

Weeds are just flowers in the wrong place.

Hard work in the right place is doubly rewarding. It feels good and it pays off in the long run.


Things may or may not work. But they are always worth trying.


The things we truly love and nurture will grow the best.


Nature As Mentor


Nature can certainly teach us a thing or two!


Flowers teach us that rain is just as important as sunshine. In fact, without plenty of rain, flowers will quickly die. Flowers also look gorgeous in the rain!


Trees teach us how to live alongside each other. Walking through Bluebell Woods and around the Mere last week, I was amazed to notice just how many different trees were happily living side by side. The reason I actually noticed was because I had seen this lovely image, and read Rosa Say's inspiring words:

*Lōkahi. We can live in harmony and in unity.
If trees can do it, rooted together where they stand, then so can we!


Birds teach us how to greet the new day with a song. They don't seem to worry much about what happened yesterday, they are simply filled with joy at each new dawn. Joy at having worms to catch and a family to feed. Joy at being alive and being able to sing. And they share their joy with everyone around them.

Wishing you all a wonderful week, filled with riotous colour and jubilant song!

(The links above are all to images on flickr. It's much easier than doing battle with Blogger! I love sharing pictures with you, but still have real problems both with uploading and with spacing. Flickr rocks!)

* Lōkahi (loh-kah-hee) means harmony, unity and collaboration. For more on beautilful Hawaiian values, have a look at Rosa's fab Managing With Aloha Coaching.

:o)

5 comments:

Annieye said...

What a lovely post Moondreamer. Really gives food for thought.

My mum used to say that people are like wildflowers - they live on through their children.

HelenMWalters said...

Beautiful post as always. Lots to think about and some great images

Unknown said...

Lots of wonderful inspiration here Dianne, thank you. I hope you find a way to upload the pictures in some time too then we can revel even more in nature's glory!

You reminded me on Twitter at the start of the week about how we need rain for the plants to grow, and it was such a positive thought on a grey day.

I'm also smiling at the thought of those joy-ful birds starting each morning with a new song - if only we could learn to do the same!

Joanna

Karen said...

My garden's rather overgrown at the moment, which probably says more about me than the long grass!

Moondreamer said...

Thank you, Annieye!

Writing it has certainly made me think a lot, about where my focus in life should be, among other things ... more about that in a post soon.

The thought from your Mum is lovely, thank you for sharing it here!

:o)

Thank you, Helen!

I'm glad you liked it, I really enjoyed writing it!

And I have really enjoyed taking pictures recently, it has reminded me of how lucky I am to live in such a beautiful place ... and I find macro photography so exciting, I love the idea of capturing the tiny details in life!

The Photography Less Ordinary group on flickr have posted some extraordinary images, very inspiring, well-worth checking out.

:o)

Thank you, Joanna!

I'll keep trying with pictures on here, I love how words and images are such friends! When I post pictures, it messes with my text spacing and makes a post difficult to read sometimes. (I think it might help if I learn some html.)

Thank you again for your support and encouragement, recently ... and for reminding me about what's really important. Your survey question triggered much thought, resulting in a redirection of focus which will have so many positive effects.

:o)

Karen, the bit of garden I have photographed is the smallest corner ... the rest is like a jungle! I'll taket some pictures of it to post on flickr.

I thought of you, when I posted pictures of the Mere! I'll take some more of the local area and put them up soon.

:o)

To you all, huge thanks for visiting and leaving such encouraging comments. This is a very special post for me, I'll explain more in another post, but I want you to know how much I really appreciate you all and how great a part of it you are ... great in both senses, a very big part and a very wonderful part!

Thank you! x

:o)