Gardening & Garden, Guilt & Joy

I step in the garden and I do or create nothing except foot prints on the ground. I want my foot prints to be of some use. Maybe they would lead to a corner in the  garden where I work on creating a seating area. Or I should clean the birdbath or tidy up the walking path or pick up the trash that the wind brought in last night. Maybe I should tie up the grapevine that is struggling to climb up the railing, getting rocked by the breeze and mocked by the gusts of wind.

My feet don’t move to do either of these. There have been many such days when “should do” turns into “don’t feel like doing” which then turns into not wanting to step out in the garden. I succumb to the guilt of not gardening the garden I started. More I walk around, I will find things that need to be done. So I don't got out in the garden. I won't see, I won't find things wrong.  

Then a restlessness creeps in. There is a sense of pull from somewhere. It grows stronger than the guilt of not doing the garden tasks. It might be the garden calling me or it might be simply me from underneath the cover of "should- shouldn’t". 

I start walking on the garden path, a step hesitant and the next few carefree. A glimpse of a red, ripe wolfberry, a hummingbird perched on a thin twig of the redbud tree, a sight of yellow sulfphur butterfly fluttering around, a whiptail lizard sprinting to take cover under the dalea bush. These simple surprises melt all guilts away and wash any to-do task lists away. In these moments, it does not matter what is out of place in garden or in life. In these very moment, everything is in place, in order. This is the joy of being in the garden.

Did it ever help to see the garden through the glass shield of a to-do list? 

I now practice to leave the shield behind before I enter my garden everyday. My garden needs to see me and I need to sense it, without any shields. 

How do I take care of the garden chores then? I have learnt that the joy of just being in the garden, rather than the dissatisfaction that arises from not completing the tasks, is a stronger fuel for doing garden chores. This fuel, the joy, comes from just stepping out in the garden without any expectations and without any task burdens.