Letting Things Breathe

 

Every gardener knows that it is essential to aerate the soil every once in a while in order to let the soil breathe and give the roots room to spread out. Now that I have become a year-round indoor gardener, I don't have to wait until the ground softens after the winter frosts have gone to do that. I am able to give the soil in my indoor pots and planters a good stir every so often so that, even in the dead of winter outside, inside my roots and the soil they live in can breathe, stretch themselves, and grow.

As always, there is a lesson here that Mother Nature is graciously sharing with us. If we want things in our inner gardens - a.k.a our hearts, our spirits, our souls - to grow healthy and strong, we have to let the soil they are growing in breathe. That means that when we get bogged down in worry, blame, hate, and hopelessness, we have to find a way to stir our inner soil to let the bad stuff out and the good stuff reach out and stretch its roots. I'm talking about things like love, compassion, kindness, understanding, acceptance, hope, and joy. Some of the ways that we can let our inner gardens breathe is to stay away from negativity online and in the media as much as possible and spend that time reading uplifting material, doing things that bring us joy, and, especially, doing things for others. It is so much easier to love and appreciate ourselves, and grown ourselves into happy, healthy individuals, when we love and appreciate others. 

Right now I'm about to loosen the soil around my begonias and the geranium that is outgrowing its pot. With any luck, they will be blooming before spring. May your own garden do the same.

Peace and blessing.

While The Earth Sleeps

This is the time of the year when every gardener worthy of the name (and some who aspire to it) start receiving seed and plant catalogs in the mail, tempting them with page after page of beautiful flowers, luscious veggies, and all manner of foliage that they are sure will make the garden of their dreams a reality. While the garden sleeps, gardeners plan.

I always wondered if Mother Nature does the same thing. Of course she doesn't receive seed catalogs in the mail (at least I don't think she does but who knows), but I always wondered if she looked back at all that she had grown over the past year and decided what stayed, what she'd pull out, and what she'd improve upon. Did those new flowers in the southwest holdup to the heat? Did the new hybrid veggies in the northeast stand up to the early frosts they get up there? And what about those areas devastated by fire this past year? What was she going to plant to help them come back? What would she grow in the ashes?

I like to think of this time of year, while the world sleeps under the cover of ice and snow, as a time to do some inner gardening. Curled up under a blanket, with a cup of something hot in our hands, we can create out own catalog of dream seeds, those things we want to plant in the new year to help our inner gardens to thrive. What needs to be pulled out? What didn't grow the way we thought it would - or should - and what did? Where do we need to turn over our inner soil and start something new? If our life was a catalog, what would we want to see on the pages that, if planted and nurtured, would give us a garden of life full of beauty and a harvest beyond our imaginations? Perhaps, as the world sleeps, we can use this time the way Mother Nature uses hers. 

This year especially,  let's start planning our inner garden way before the snow melts and the first buds appear on the trees. By the time the world wakes up and warms up to spring, we would already have the first tiny buds of our inner garden poking through the ashes, ready to make our lives and the world a more beautiful place to be.

And so it is. 

The Light In Winter

Well, here we are again. It started snowing late yesterday afternoon and this morning I woke to a fresh carpet of a few inches on the ground, just when the last of the big 40.5 inches had almost disappeared. The sky is socked in with a white blanket of clouds and the hills in the back are snow-covered with dots of green from the pines trees. All of the trees look as if they were decorated with tiny fluffs of cotton. Between the snow and the winter light, the entire landscape looks like a blank canvas.

In the winter, the Northern Hemisphere points away from the sun, resulting in fewer hours of sunshine and shorter days. Shadows are far more "shadowy" during the winter months. Some days they almost look theatrical. Other days, like today, there is such a contrast between the whiteness of the landscape and the few dots of dark from the bare trees and a few houses that the whole idea of a blank canvas becomes more intense. I like to think of it as Mother Nature washing everything clean and using the winter months to think of what she wants to do in the spring, what colors and forms she wants to decorate the earth with this year. For me it is a reminder that as a blank canvas is to a painter, so is a blank page to a writer, and a clean slate to anyone who wants to wash away the old experiences and ideas that no longer work and start fresh. While I am not a person who ever believed in New Year's Resolutions, I am a gardener at heart and the idea of creating something new, or something better, from a section of freshly turned soil is right up there with Mother Nature's clean canvas. It's the chance to paint our inner landscapes with color, and joy, and peace. Now that's what I call a work of art.

And so it is.

 

A Very White Christmas

 Living in the northeast for all of my life, and coming up on 29 years living in upstate New York next March, you'd think I'd be used to a lot of snow, and you'd be right ... except 40.5 inches in less than 24 hours this early before we even got to the Winter Solstice is a bit much even for us! This is the view outside of my window before they got to "serious" snow removal. As I write this, five guys with snow blowers and plows on the front of the trucks are still working on getting the parking lot to my complex cleared so the giant mounds that were parked cars can be rescued, this five days after the storm hit. Last night as I went to bed around 10 pm, the sound of front-end loaders and dump trucks could be heard clearing side streets and loading up the snow to take it somewhere else. This morning we finally have some sun and I have to say, as trying a time as it's been, and likely to be for some time, the sunlight glittering off the endless vista of snow is beautiful.

It certainly seems a fitting ending to this year of upheaval and challenge, to be snowed in for several days with travel bans for most of us and the poor mail carriers, as if they didn't have enough on their shoulders (literally), trying to walk through hip-high snow drifts to deliver the mail. On the one hand, I want to say to everyone that had been praying for a white Christmas: are you happy now? On the other hand, most of us are getting really good at adapting, prioritizing, and maybe even retrieving old-fashioned ways to make this holiday the best it can be, all things considered. I can tell from the empty shelves of yarn in the craft stores that knitting needles and crochet hooks are coming out of retirement and clicking away making gifts, and cooking has become a rediscovered art form (we won't talk about the extra pounds until after New Year's, ok?).  The kids, tired of being stuck in front of a screen every day because of remote learning - did you think you'd ever hear them complain about being online - were squealing with joy at the giant mounds of snow to let loose in, unleashing all that pent-up energy and frustration. When you look at it this way, maybe a snow storm is exactly what we needed. Maybe we grown-ups need to have a good old-fashioned snowball fight to let it all out and leave our pain and sorrow to melt on the ground. Yep, we definitely needed a snow storm.

It may be hard to perceive it now, but underneath all of that snow, spring is sleeping and just waiting to come forth and bring us all new life. Until then, happy snowballing, and a very, merry Christmas to you and yours. 

And so it is.

P.S. Flower Bear will be on Christmas vacation next week (but the "Flower Bear's Thought For The Day" will still appear on her Facebook Fan Page). Stay safe and try not to eat too many cookies! Peace and blessings. 

What Christmas Feels Like

 

For anyone who has been following this blog from the beginning, you already know the story of my pilgrimage to find a simpler life and where that led me. For anyone new to the blog, let me just encapsulate the story: City-born girl longs for life in a small town. When the kids are all grown and gone, and hubby has flown the coop, city girl packs up her car and heads north to a small country town that made all of her dreams come true. It was like living in a Hallmark movie, with county fairs, and hometown parades and, most of all, a country Christmas that would have made Normal Rockwell jealous. It was almost perfect and she was so very happy.

Fast forward 25 years and city girl turned country girl had to move to a medium sized town on the edge of a small city because jobs in her little town got to be few and far between and she had to support herself. After she retired, she tried moving back to the small town of her dreams but this time it just didn't feel the same. Everything felt and looked different and, worst of all, Christmas was no longer beautiful and perfect. In fact, it was downright depressing, especially since the rest of her family were living an hour south of her. So when a small studio apartment with a killer view came up for rent in that slightly larger town, in the suburb of that smaller city, she moved closer to family and friends, and has spent the last three years trying to figure out what went wrong when she had tried moving back to the town of her dreams. So this is what she (meaning "I") came up with.

Christmas, like life itself, isn't where you live, or how you live, it's who you are wherever you live. Sure, it's a tree, and cookies, and carols, and Santa, but it's much more than that. It's the choices you make that turns your life, and your holidays, into the gifts of love, charity, and kindness that follow you wherever you live and that define you inner as well as our outer life. Maybe, after growing up amidst the bright lights of New York City at  Christmas - magical to say the least - and all the hustle and bustle that went with it, and then experiencing a hometown Christmas of carols in the square, the town Christmas tree, and the annual church Christmas bazaars, I was trying too hard to make it an either/or kind of life when at it's best it was a blending of them both. 

Life, especially at Christmas, and especially after the year we've all had, should be about all the things that feel like Christmas - the love, the care, the compassion, the giving without expecting something in return, and the knowledge that everything else is just tinsel on the tree. May your Christmas, and your life, be trimmed with all the things that make life a blessing no matter where you live.

And so it is. 

The Colors Of Christmas

 

Well, it's officially here ... the season of lights. Everywhere you look there are colored lights, white lights, and, in some cases, even outdoor spot lights. I love the commercial that's on TV right now about the guy who puts so many lights on his house that the astronauts can see them from the space station!

As a child I was enveloped in the magic of the lights of Christmas just like any other kid. It was only when I got older, and especially in the last 25 years or so, that I became more enamored of the natural colors of the season rather than the often loud, in-your-face decorations and attention seeking set ups. Don't get me wrong. I love a good Christmas decoration just like most folks. In fact my youngest daughter, whom I refer to as my Christmas Baby because of her December birthday, goes above and beyond a few lights and a waving Santa out front. It brings her joy and puts smiles on the faces of everyone who drives by, and that is as it should be. For me, it's all about what Mother Nature has given us for free. 

Above everything else, it starts with the color green, the green of the tree, and the holy leaves, and the wreaths, and the swags of garlands hung around the house. After green comes the red of the holly berries and the cranberries strung and wrapped around the tree, and the red stripes of the candy canes.  Then, of course, there is the snow, the beautiful, fluffy, white snow that is the finishing touch, almost like a woman accessorizing with jewelry. My own little woodland tree has artificial snow on its branches so that it looks like a Christmas tree for all the woodland creatures like the ones I have nestled underneath - a squirrel, a beaver, and lots of birds. 

It's at times like these, when we are all searching for ways to think "outside the box" when it comes to finding clever ways to decorate this year, but we are being told to stay inside the box, that I think back to our ancestors who didn't have a Walmart or a Home Depot to go to for holiday decorations. They took the gifts that Mother Nature provided them with and created their own indoor wonderland. I'd like to think that those were, and still are, the best gifts of all, because they remind us that no matter what happens in the world if people, Mother still takes care of her own.

And so it is. 

And So It Begins

 

'Twas four days after Thanksgiving, and all through the house, the leftovers were gone and Christmas officially began!"

I don't know what your Christmas tradition is like for when you start decorating the tree and the house, but in my family the pumpkin pie and coffee are still on the table when my youngest daughter herds up the rest of the family and starts hauling boxes down from the attic. Before the kids' heads have hit the pillow with tummies full of turkey and stuffing, the tree is up, most of the indoor decorations are placed around the house, and the foyer is stacked with the things that will be going outside (in fact this year a few of those found their way to the porch as well). In my daughter's house, once Santa comes down the street in the Thanksgiving Day Parade, it's official: The Christmas season is here!

My daughter was a December baby and that has played a huge part in her official capacity as "The Grand Dame of All Things Christmas." All three of her children, and now her grandson, know what it's like starting on Thanksgiving Day to live in a place that looks like Christmas Village, with the smell of cookies baking and seasonal music playing. Actually, she has had the music programmed into her car's radio since right after Halloween. As she says, you can never start too early.

As much as we tease her about being perpetually 5 years old when it comes to Christmas, there is something about watching the tree go up that touches the 5 year old in all of us. The last few years I have enjoyed putting up my tiny woodland tree, it's branches dusted with a snow-like substance and looking like it could be sitting in the middle of the woods, a Christmas tree for the critters. My daughter's is a full sized tree and she also opted for one with the look of a dusting of snow on the branches. They both remind me of the days when I was little and my Dad would bring the real, freshly cut tree home tied to the roof of his car. These days ours are artificial because, alas, the Christmas baby is allergic to pine trees. That does not stop her from turning her home into a woodland, Christmas delight.

This year I've even toyed with the idea of stringing dried berries and popcorn on my tree, to take it back to an older, gentler time, and only hanging the handmade ornaments. I don't want Christmas to be glitzy this year. This year, of all years, I want it to be simple, natural, and a reminder that one of the most important symbols of this holiday came out of nature. This symbol, the tree, touches all of our hearts regardless of how old we are. It is love, and hope, and wonder at what Mother Nature has created just for us. It makes a house a home. 

I'm holding off until next weekend to put up my tree so that my youngest granddaughter can take part and help old Grandma pull down the boxes and bags from the closet. Maybe we'll even make cookies and enjoy our church's livestream of the annual Christmas concert with a cup of hot chocolate in our hands as well. For sure the Christmas music will be playing ... and then we'll both be 5 again if only for a day.

And so it is.