Straining to Grow

This time of the year is always difficult for me. I begin seeing the first shoots of the daffodils and crocus starting to push through the dirt and I get the urge to haul out all of my gardening paraphernalia and get moving. I want to clear away all of the dead branches, the fallen leaves and the dead foliage from last year and start preparing beds for their new plants ... and then I have to stop myself. I have lived up in these parts long enough to know that just because we've had a few warm days and the green is starting to return in tiny increments, it doesn't mean that it is time to garden. I would be surprised if we did not yet get hit with some snow or a late frost. Doing all of that clearing would take away any protection the plants beneath would have against such a drastic weather change, and delicate new plants would hardly survive.  Even though I am straining at the bit (to borrow a little horse wisdom) to get the gardening season underway, wisdom and experience tell me that by being patient, watching the weather and starting slowly, the end result will be well worth waiting for. 

It is natural to get excited when we are hit with the creative urge, or when a new idea takes hold. We want to jump in with both feet and "get it done." However, sometimes by pushing and forcing our will on the project because of our attachment to the outcome, we are unhappy with the final results. Last month when we looked at the Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra, he reminded us that: "Grass doesn't try to grow, it just grows ... Flowers don't try to bloom, they bloom." When we calm down, sit back and sense where our idea or project wants to go, and then take one small step in that direction, we will be lead naturally and without strain to the next step, and the next, and the next. It is in our detachment to a specific outcome, and our allowing for the infinity of possibility to open up to us, that we not only end up with a much better outcome than we could have imagined, but we find that we have enjoyed the journey even more.

So yesterday on the first day of Spring, while the sun was shinning but the wind was still blowing cold, I walked around the garden beds and started making a list of what I could do now, and what I would hold off doing until later. Then I took myself back inside to sit by a window and watch the robins, back from their winter vacation, pecking at the bread crumbs I'd left them while I sat in silence to see what message from my gardening muse might be trying to surface - but I left my gardening work gloves out, just in case!

And so it is.