In Defense Of Weeds

Hello, my name is Dandelion, and I am a weed ... at least that's what you call me. I am actually a plant just like other plants. I was put here on this earth to be of service and fulfill my purpose. Oh, you only think I'm a nuisance because I'm growing where you want to plant one of your frilly, pretty flowers. I happen to think that yellow is a beautiful color. After all, the sun is yellow, and where would your pretty pink flowers be without the sun, I ask you? Besides, I have so much more value than you realize. Your ancestors knew how to use every inch of me, from my roots, to my greens and my pretty yellow flowers as well. I am medicine for when you are sick, vitamins to help your body grow strong, and even wine to sooth you. My yellow color makes an awesome paint ... I can paint the sun! Can your frilly pink flowers do that, huh?

The reason I a writing to you today is because the way you humans treat us is the way you treat each other. If someone is perceived to be different, if they don't "fit in" with the rest of the crowd, you don't want them around. Very often they are given labels that are derogatory and hurtful. Just as often, however, they have gifts and talents you would be surprised to learn ... if you bothered to take the time to learn them instead of just writing them off as "those people." It is more than likely that where they come from, not only are they considered beautiful and talented, but they would consider you to be "those people." In many parts of the word, dandelions are grown ON PURPOSE (wrap your head around that one) as medicine. Do you humans even know why you're here, or what your purpose is? Maybe you should give that one some thought before you start labeling others as "weeds."

P.S. You're just jealous anyway because we can still grow in the millions despite all of your hard work to get rid of us!

P.P.S. This post was written after Flower Bear spent a very hot and buggy morning pulling weeds to prep the new garden ... and she apologized to every dandelion she pulled out. She's nice that way.

And so it is.

If You Think You Got The Wrong Manual

Someone once said that life would be so much easier if we came with a user's manual. Just think ... whenever something went wrong, or we didn't know how to do something, all we'd have to do is look it up and then we'd know how to fix our lives. Wouldn't that be just great? Or would it? What if we read the manual and it still didn't make sense? Even worse, what if we came with the wrong manual?

I am reminded of the time when I ordered some rose bushes from a catalog and they came with a set of instructions for planting lilacs! With my track record for killing rose bushes, this was not a good omen. Then there was the time that I ordered a do-it-yourself bookcase from a company I'd never heard of before (always one to save a dollar when I can) only to have the assembly instructions come in a language I could not even identify let alone translate ... which didn't seem to mean anything to my then 10 year old step-son who simply looked at the pictures and figured it out by himself.

The reason we don't all come with a user's manual is because we are all unique. My manual may not make any sense to you (like those bookcase instructions), and yours might have nothing to do with where I am in my life (like where to put a rose bush as opposed to a lilac bush). Maybe the reason you think you got the wrong one is because knowing ahead of time how your life will turn out takes all of the excitement and adventure out of growing, and growing is what we're here to do. How boring life would be if we went through it without even one challenge, or the ability to make our own choices instead of following a set of predetermined instructions, but isn't that what we do when we just blindly follow along living our lives according to other peoples' beliefs and customs? The ability to blaze our own trail is what makes living worth while. Otherwise we're just another nail in the bookcase just like every other nail. How boring is that?

These days, if I can't find out how to do something by looking online (bless you, YouTube), I give myself permission to strike out on my own and make my own mistakes. It's all part of living and growing, and my garden - both the one inside and the one outside - blooms as it was meant to be!

And so it is.

What's It Worth To You?

This week we have been blessed with beautiful, warm weather with more on it's way. Knowing that up where I live the weather can still turn on a last blast of cold before Memorial Day, I take advantage of the current sunshine and summer-like temps and spend as much time as I can outside as I begin to whip this new garden of mine into shape.

When people ask me why I put such a high price on a garden, I tell them that it feeds my spirit, as well as my physical self, and the health and well-being of my non-human neighbors. From the butterflies, to the birds, to the bees, this garden feeds the spirits and bodies of many. When the first leaf of lettuce appears, and the first grape tomato turns red, my body gets a return on it's investment. When the lavender graces my eyes with a splash of color and my nose with that heavenly scent, my whole spirit is rewarded. Yes, I must spend a great deal of my time, my energy, my body (oh, those sore, unused winter muscles) and, yes, even my money, but what I get is a dividend that is more valuable to me than money - a happy, nurtured spirit. I feel at one with Creator and everything that lives and breathes on the earth. Who can put a value on that?

What do you value? What are you willing to spend to have the life you want? What's your "currency?" Is it money? Time? Health? Relationships? What will you do to feed your life? When I garden, I know that even if a storm should flatten all my hard work, the sun will come up again tomorrow and the garden will renew itself over and over, season after season. The return on this investment is endless. I'd say that's a pretty good return on my time and money, wouldn't you? How many of us can say that about the investments we make in the kind of lives we want to live?

So how will you spend your "currency" today? My wish for you is that you choose from your heart, not your wallet, and that your returns are boundless! As for me, my investment today is to free the tulip beds from the first wave of dandelions!

And so it is.

Seeing The Big Picture

Little by little, Spring is starting to make its presence felt in my neck of the woods. The two days of snow showers didn't exactly help the situation , but those hardy little spikes of tulip and daffodil foliage hung in and rewarded me with the first buds of the year yesterday. So I walked out and stood opposite the front of my side of the house to try and get an idea of what the whole thing will look like when everything finally blooms. The hard part is trying to see the big picture because I've never seen this particular garden in full bloom before.

Of course, this got me to thinking about where I am now at the ripe young age of 65 and what the big picture looks like for me (but then you knew where this was going, right?). The spring bulbs just now showing themselves reminded me of our childhoods: growing tall, bursting with color and life. Then the perennials came through - the things we learned to count on, that sustained us and kept coming back when we needed them, like our faith, our education, our life experiences. Eventually we arrived at the place where we started to plant our annuals, those seeds and plants that come and go, that last for a while and then move on to be replaced with something new and different. Finally, the harvest came in and we picked what nourished us through the winter, discarding what didn't make it and learning to perhaps plant something different in that spot next year.

The important lesson here is that we never really see the big picture all at once. We are only privy to certain views from one season to another. The tulips and daffodils are gone by the time the hosta and lamb's ear come up, and the apple blossoms are gone before the apples begin to appear. Instead of frustrating ourselves because we can't always see the rest of our lives laid out before us like a painting, we can enjoy the season we are in at the moment and learn from it. What can I plant in front of the bulbs that will come up when the bulbs finally lay down? What can I plant that will be there when I need it, and how can I brighten up my life with something new and challenging?

For now I must be content with what I can see at this present moment. As I bend down to get a better idea of how many tulips are going to come up right outside my window, I see the beginnings of some other green leaves starting to make its way across the flower beds ... wild strawberries! Gee, I can't wait to see how beautiful that's going to look!

And so it is.

A Lesson In Patience

Where I live there is an extra season squeezed in between winter and spring. It's called Mud Season. It is that time when the five feet of snow that has been gracing your yard has finally all melted, and April Showers takes on a whole new meaning. I devoted a whole chapter of my ebook, "Staying Rooted" (available on Amazon.com) to this subject. Even though the temperature may taunt and tease you with days up in the high 60's and maybe even an occasional 70, it can just as easily fall back down into the 30's over night, with a snow shower thrown in just so Mother Nature can remind us frail humans who is really in charge.

For a frustrated gardener like myself, especially one who has been longing for a real yard to garden in again after 15 years of container gardening on my front porch, the seemingly endless winter that just passed was agony made worse by the fact that unless you own a pair of good garden boots, or "Wellies" as my British girlfriend used to call them, you can't even venture off the concrete path or driveway let alone even think about planting anything. Even yard clean up has to be parceled out to those few days that are warm and dry unless you enjoy sinking up to your ankles in mud.

If I have learned anything at all from all my years of gardening, I have learned the value of patience. Any time I rush ahead to satisfy some childish tantrum, an "I want it now" kind of ego trip, the results are a disaster. All the jumping up and down in the world will not make the tulips, daffodils or crocus come up any faster. It will all come to pass when the optimal conditions are there.

How many times in our lives have we rushed into a situation without taking the time to weigh all of the pros and cons only to be disappointed, or worse, with the outcome? That guy you thought was "the one" that you moved in with after only a few months? The job that you were sure was going to be your career forever? The move across the country that left you feeling alone and adrift in a sea of strangers? I'm not advocating not going after your dreams. If  you are a regular reader of my blog, you know that I am a one-woman cheering section for following your bliss, but any time I didn't balance the desires of my heart with a clear understanding of what I was getting into, I was always disappointed.

It's easy to pull out a dead plant and put in another one. It's a whole lot harder to have to restart your entire life. Mother Nature is the best teacher in the art of learning patience that I have ever seen, and we would do well to take the time to listen to the lesson and watch how beautiful the world is with the results once we have learned it. Even if you have to go out and buy a new pair of boots so you can function while you wait for better weather, it beats getting stuck in the mud every time!

And so it is.

The Gift

I had an entirely different subject planned for this week's post. That is, until I opened up Facebook and saw a post from my oldest daughter. Last week she had asked everyone to join her in praying for a dear friend who was going through her second bout with cancer. The woman, who was in her 40's, was a loving mother, wife, teacher, and an endlessly giving member of her community. So it was with great sadness when I saw this morning's post announcing that she had passed over the weekend. My daughter is, of course, carrying a heavy heart as are my two grandsons who are friends with this woman's son.

It has long ceased to surprise me when synchronicity shows up in my life. Yesterday at church, before I even knew that my daughter's friend had passed, we were having a group discussion on the reading from The Daily Word, a publication of Unity Church (you can find this online at Daily Word.org) . The reading for the day was on being grateful for a new day. We discussed how each of us started our day and how that determined how we lived that day. I shared the idea that I see each and every day as a gift, and that how I use the day is my way of showing gratitude for a gift of such unconditional love. Each and every day is filled with infinite possibilities, unlimited choices and unlimited opportunities to not only live happy and fulfilling lives, but to show our gratitude by using this gift in the service of others. I'm not saying everyone should go and dig wells in Africa or volunteer in a homeless shelter, although both are wonderful ideas. What I am saying is that we can say "thank you for this day" by not squandering this gift. Smile at a total stranger. Help someone carry heavy packages. Offer to pick up groceries for a shut-in, or call a friend in need of some cheering up. When you shine a light on someones day, your own life lights up as well.

We will never know when the day we are currently living will be our last. It will come when it will. I don't want to waste one day in sorrow, negativity or selfishness. I want each and every day to reflect the unconditional love that gave us this gift in the first place. When it is my time to transition, I want people to say, "her life was a gift to all of us." May we all be so rewarded.

And so it is.

The Things We Can Count On

My Dad was fond of the old saying, "There's only two things you can count on : death and taxes." Today I am sitting down, finally, to do my taxes and as I started to pull out all of the paper work, that saying popped into my head. I thought to myself, "Gee, if that's all we have to count on, what's the point of getting up in the morning?" So I shoved the papers aside (just for a little while - I'm "counting" on myself to get it done today), and decided to make a list of other things we can count on that are perhaps a little more uplifting and provide us with a reason to feel good about life:

1. The sun always comes up every day even when it's raining.

2. The seasons always follow one after the other in order (okay winter seemed a bit

longer this year but Spring did finally get here).

3. If we plant a seed in the garden, and nourish it, and give it light, it will grow.

4. If we plant an intention in our heart, and nourish it, and give it light and love,

it will manifest in our lives.

No, I did not slip that last one in just to see if you were paying attention. I know this to be true in my life, as true as numbers 1-3. Sometimes things took longer to manifest because I did not nourish the intention, or I did not give it enough light (attention), or I did not prepare the soil by believing in myself, but as long as I kept weeding out what no longer served me and fertilized it with love and determination, something did grow. It didn't always look like I thought it would and sometimes it was even better than I had envisioned. In fact, sometimes it was completely different from anything I could have imagined and that turned out to be what was in my highest good.

So here's the scoop: there is no one who will have your back and be your biggest cheerleader more than you. When you realize that you can count on yourself to keep moving in the direction of your dreams, there is nothing that you cannot be, do or have, and while you're on your journey, you can count on the fact that the sun will always come up in the morning, that spring will always follow winter, and that your garden will blossom as long as you continue to believe in yourself.

And so it is.

P.S. Here's something else you can count on - my latest ebook, Song Of An Extraordinary Life: Creating A New Soundtrack For Our Third Age, is guaranteed to give you  a whole new perspective on the subject of aging and help you live your "Third Age" the way it was meant to be lived! Available from Amazon Kindle:

www.amazon.com/dp/B00VETGZFU.