La Belle's Hobby Farm: Farmgirl Meditations on Beauty

But he who dares not grasp the thorn

Should never crave the rose.

~ Anne Brontë

In September, I’m participating in the Sapphire Even Day Blogging Challenge and the Two Pages-A-Day Writing Challenge. 

A

wise gardener sees beauty in the grotesque.  

She takes nothing at face value.  Where others may see death and decay, she sees rebirth and nourishment.  Where they see an insect to be feared or destroyed, she sees a predator that takes care of invasive insects that would otherwise destroy her plants.

Patience is usually held up as the virtue of the gardener.  And it is, but it’s not the

foundational virtue.  Rather, the gardener’s cornerstone is a heart that is unconditionally accepting and eyes that pierce the surface layer.  And this gift is especially needed in the first blush of autumn, when the summer harvest has dwindled to a trickle, and the fall plantings have not yet matured.

In my garden, the tomato vines are withering away, but they valiantly support fruit that is still green.  If I were more concerned with mere appearance and less with harvesting the last of summer’s bounty, I would have pulled up the ugly plants long ago.  But I know if I leave some fruit on the vine and it drops to the ground, I will have volunteers next year. 

So glad to share my marigolds with the bees!
© 2013, Mikaela D’Eigh

Same for the marigolds.  The little ninjas seemed to explode every time my back was turned and they are still going strong.  But several of them have turned brown.  But if I pull them out before the seed pods are fully dry, the seeds will rot.  So I harvest what I can and wait for the others to dry.  The brown stalks don’t appear ugly to me.   

They are beautiful because they carry the promise of next spring.

My Love is a Garden

The heart too has its seasons: seasons of growth, of harvest, of joy, and of death and pain.  It is easy to see the seasons of joy as beautiful and the wintery days of pain as ugly.  But everything we experience is beautiful if we allow ourselves to see it.  The cultivation of this type of sight doesn’t come to the heart overnight.

A gardener learns through her mistakes and grows a more abundant harvest the following year.  So too a soul learns to weed when she needs to, to harvest when the time is right, and to use every experience as spiritual and emotional compost, so that the next harvest is richer, stronger, sweeter.

While we wait for the storm to pass, try to remember that it is nourishing the roots.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

How is your fall garden faring?  And how is your heart preparing for Autumn?

Remembering 9-11-01: Grief and Memory

If, as a culture, we don’t bear witness to grief, the burden of loss is placed entirely upon the bereaved, while the rest of us avert our eyes and wait for those in mourning to stop being sad, to let go, to move on, to cheer up. And if they don’t — if they have loved too deeply, if they do wake each morning thinking, I cannot continue to live — well, then we pathologize their pain; we call their suffering a disease.  We do not help them: we tell them that they need to get help.

~ Cheryl Strayed

In September, I’m participating in the Sapphire Even Day Blogging Challenge and the Two Pages-A-Day Writing Challenge. 

H

ow quickly we forget.

It’s a defense mechanism, really.  If we remained in the same exact state of grief as when our loved ones first left us, we would probably go blind from crying. 

So the gaping hole left in our lives by the loss scars over, and we continue living our lives.  Scars are proof of a life well lived and heart well loved.  And it’s natural to begin to see them through a haze ~ not quite being able to remember the exact colour of their eyes, or the way their laugh filled a room.  It doesn’t mean we have forgotten them, but that we’ve forgotten the first stabbing pain of loss. 

We have finally integrated their leaving into our living.

Image Credit: Visit icandothings.com

It’s been twelve years since that horrific day in September.  To be honest, I can remember that I felt horrified and sad and shaken mostly because I journaled about it ~ capturing the moment and the emotion in pen and ink.  And because there are pictures that spark my memory.

Not because I still feel the same.  And not because that day is always in the forefront of my memory banks.

It is the way of grief.  To help us cope with the initial loss, the shock of never seeing our loved ones again.  And hopefully, once we’ve been touched by the hand of Death, we can remember to live life without fear and without regret.  Because we never know when or how the end will come.

It’s what our loved ones would say if we could hear them now.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

How do you cope with the loss of a loved one?  Do you find that the pain eases a little each year?  Are you afraid of forgetting them?

Don't Wait Until I'm Dead to Tell Me You Love Me

If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make,
who would you call and what would you say?  And why are you waiting? 
~ Stephen Levine

In August, I’m participating in BlogHer’s Blogging Challenge.  The theme this month is: Hot.

B

etter to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission.  Or as John Mayer put it, “Say what you need to say.”

Why do nasty hurtful words flow out of our mouths like a spring-fed waterfall, but our tongues become dry and tangled when it comes to telling someone we love them?  Is it the same emotional block that enables us to remember every word spoken in anger or hate as if they were precious diamonds, and to immediately relegate anything said out of love, encouragement, or praise to the back of the costume jewelry box?

The Little Mourner 

Frederick Sandys, 1862

My favorite aunt, who died last week, loved me immensely and considered me her favorite niece.

But I never knew that until yesterday.

She had a family of her own, with all the worry, stress, and occasional insanity that comes with it.  And I can’t throw stones: I’m guilty of allowing this grand adventure we call life turn into more of a hamster wheel than a roller coaster ride.  Guiltier perhaps because I know better, and waste more time chasing my proverbial tail when I could be staying in touch and telling loved ones how much I care.  So I’m not blaming her.  Not completely.  Yet it hurts and comforts me at the same time, to know how well she thought of me.

Because now it’s too late to respond in kind.

The lesson here is not to wait for someone else to say “I love you” or “I’m impressed with what you did” or “You are an inspiration to me.”  It’s a lesson that I forget all too quickly and need to be taught again and again.  Say it first.  You never need someone’s permission to say positive things.  Just a heart willing to be vulnerable. 

I love you, Ginny Lee.  You were my favorite, too.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

The greatest wisdom is to love without needing to possess, and to give without expectation.  Who can you encourage, build up, or tell you love them today?