Much Needed Respite

I wrote this piece some time ago, but, in honor of a friend who has just put down one of her best friends of the last 12 years, I am posting it again. As I have read the words, I realize how true they are for me, yet again, in these corporate days of uncertainty, as well as private wrestlings. May they bless you, as well. What I write of the garden, is also abundantly true of spending time anywhere in the natural world.

Pollinators, pollinators everywhere in the yard! Bees of all shapes and sizes, butterflies and hummingbirds...Everywhere I look there is buzzing, humming and the fluttering of wings...swamp milkweed, green-headed coneflower, ironweed, joe-pye weed, cardinal flower, garden phlox all playing host to our tiny native wildlife… I feel like a shepherdess winding through the plantings, keeping watch over her flock, ensuring that what they need for life and health is provided.

I have spent much of my day outside today, longing for peace and respite from the upheaval and concern of these tumultuous times. Sometimes I go into the garden as a scientist, to watch and observe the biological interactions. Sometimes I go for the joy of myriad colors, fragrances and bounty of life. But sometimes I wander into the garden because I am troubled, and it becomes a place of sanctuary, a place of refuge for me as much as for wildlife.

The longer we live, the longer we love people and pets, places and endeavors, the greater the loss when they are gone. Over the years, loss upon loss changes us and makes us more tender or more hardened, more pliable or more rigid. We either cooperate with such painful formation or we resist it. 

Stepping into my backyard, where the wild comes to live alongside me, does not remove the fears or losses of my life, but it provides a space large enough to hold the accompanying emotions and ensures comfort as no other place can. The life found there pries my eyes off myself and points them to something, and Someone, greater than my worries. I am reminded that there are seasons and cycles to life and that calm really does return after storms.  I am reminded that life goes on. The garden that was created to be a home for wildlife has also become home to me. It has become a habitat for all.