This tiny talk is late. Sometimes I move slow and I miss the moment, that right moment. Then I feel all off balance and unsure of what to do. So I don’t do. I stop for fear of doing it wrong. “I’ll save this and share it at the right time next year.”
But check it out – today I’m going to do things a little different. You know what I’m going to do?? I’m not going to worry about it. Ha!! How about that? I don’t have to be perfect. ( Not today anyhow 😉
So, I’m being imperfect and publishing this talk a season late. Two months and one day ago we were still in late winter. By now the season has rolled on and we are in the full swing of spring. Which means the garden is in a whole different frame of mind than it was during that quiet moment in March.
I invite you to imagine that it is still very chilly, that it turns cold just as soon as the sun isn’t upon you. Imagine there is still a bit of snow on the ground, it is late afternoon, with the sun almost slipping behind the neighboring houses….
March 2024
This time of year the garden is deeply quiet. It has ceased its contemplation of last season’s growth and harvest. (Those thoughts went to bed with the winter solstice.) It has not yet begun filling with the energies of spring. In this moment the garden is in a time of pensive quiet, still and gentle, the quiet before coming months of activity and growth.
Do you want to know what’s extra sweet about the pensive garden? The pensive garden does not ever have to wonder if it is doing the right thing. Not ever. The gentling garden is quiet and still, without worry or doubt.
You will not hear the pensive garden think those jumbled human thoughts of, “am I doing the right thing, the wrong thing, the up thing, the down thing?”
The other thing you will not hear from the garden is if it did the wrong thing. Even when the garden has been a real asshat, it will not wonder. (Yes, the garden can be a real jerk sometimes. It has its moments.)
The garden just is. And the winter garden just is quiet and still, peaceful and gentle.
Of course, we are people, not gardens. This means that looking up and noticing when we’ve been the asshat is an important part of being human; it is one of the pieces that makes us whole. We also get to decide when it is time to get up and do the things.
And sometimes we get to choose to be quiet and still with the quiet garden. Even during the energies of spring, the brightness of summer, and the harvests of fall, even then we can find little corners of gentle stillness quiet.
The winter garden reminds us that there are times when the most important thing to do is to do no things at all, when the most important thing is to be quiet and still like the pensive garden.
And that, my friends, opens the door to two future tiny topics:
My Years on the Couch
and
octaz: gathering movement in the stillness.
See you soon.
Image credit: me
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