Taking It One Step Further

There is a gift or promise in the making …

Field notes from Deborah:   It’s fun to be back in the garden again! When we purchased our little home five years ago, an older perennial garden was in place in the front yard. It needed editing, and much more! It needed loving care. Now that my writing desk is facing out our front window onto the garden, I decided to get busy and make it into something special to see each morning.  My interest in the garden grew from basic curb appeal  to creating a happy place to look out upon. There is a difference. I feel the latter is about my being more connected to nature through my work, and wanting to bring more of that experience into my own garden.

As I look out now, I see birds busily digging for worms and insects, and I watch them through my field glasses and read about them. They perch near my window and seem to look at me. Perhaps they are happy I am writing for the Teachers. I feel they must know it and want to get in on it, too … visiting my yard, working and singing to help inspire me. Our dear friends, the robins, have returned again to rear their young on our fence, snuggled into a fantastic nest of leggy interlaced twigs arrayed like those woodland wreaths I see in floral shops, that take the magic of wreaths one step further — as if celebrating all woodland things! That is what I mean. I am taking it one step further, too.

Working the soil and choosing just the right plant filled several days for me. Paging through garden design books I picked up at thrift stores, made for a quick study, and I was ready for action. It was so pleasant to walk through rows of plants at a garden center, and feel the potential, literally, of each plant: Lavender, Coreopsis, Bee Balm, Dianthus, Silver Mound, Maiden Grass. Their labels, like calling cards, are mere introductions.  I must imagine them grown, moving in the wind and adding scent and beauty to my world.  As it is very windy here many days during the year, I know they will bend and wave and acclimate to life here near the shore. There is a gift or promise in the making that I am very much looking forward to.

I feel myself wanting to draw more and more each day from nature around me. I do feel it communicating with me, the long grasses in the field, gulls and hawks overhead, frogs and little garter snakes near the river,  a fox peering at me from the woods, and horses in an adjoining field. When they move or fly, it seems to me they dance. I know from the Teachers that they have their busy lives to get on with, and are not particularly concerned with us, yet I also know now that they come forward to see me and interact with me when I invite that. My walks are like an adventure now in ways too numerous here to list. Because of the abounding aspect of nature, the possibilities are endless. I was promised  this by the Teachers and they have not been wrong. They have not disappointed. I hope you, too, will bring endless beauty into your life, and explore what can inform and so inspire you!

And here is my little sparrow again, peering in at me, wondering what I may be writing, or perhaps knowing that it is a contribution to All that is, and so it must be good.  Wishing you joyful experiences, dear reader. Your comments and questions are always welcome. Deborah