Lessons from the Garden

Jun 5 / Hannah Souter

In December, in the midst of Oregon’s constant downpours and spontaneous snowstorms, I would have told you that I was NOT going to garden this year. It’s just a rental, I thought. It’s too much work. Why bother?

But of course, the first sunny week we had this spring, I found myself pulling a few weeds and pruning back bushes. I’ll at least clear away some of this dead stuff, so it doesn’t look like crap around here. One thing led to another, and now my yard is weeded (reasonably), barked, and wildflower seeds are in the ground, anticipating new life.

I feel such frustration around this cycle of life, death, and rebirth. Why bother when I know that come autumn, everything that brought me joy the previous few months will die, falling into the ground to provide compost (and more work!) for next season’s growth? Why care when everything I care for cannot—will not—endure?

I can’t live without the beauty, but I ache for the impermanence of it all.

I don’t have a solution for this except to learn how to hold that it’s true. To let these rhythms make room in my heart and my body for the tensions. For gratitude. For faith. For paradox.

A friend of mine talks about having a mental two-car garage; two things can be true at the same time. Few things help me stretch into this idea more than poetry. So one February day, I turned on my voice recording app and began to process my heart into words with rhythm and rhyme. It doesn’t make the ache of it all untrue, but it grows my capacity to hold it, participate in it, and make my life in it anyway.

May these words help you say yes to the beauty, yes to the impermanence, and yes to the courage it takes to hold both those things as true today.

Winter’s Garden

Let me trust you for beauty

as I clear away winter’s death

and make room for new life.

Is it morbid

I already grieve

that it will not last?

How do I love

when I know

everything precious to me

will be lost?

How do I settle in

to the glory of this day

to drink it deeply

like a hummingbird

who has found a bowl of sweet water

to let it bring life to me

when I know it will all

one day

go away.

The tides give

and take

and I resist this cycle of pain.

What else can we do?

But learn to bless

and learn to be blessed through

all that is

all that’s lost

all that is

all that’s lost.

And to believe

that around it all

or above it all

or below it all

or within it all

is an enduring Presence

an enduring Source

a beating Heart

to give us courage

in daily doses

to say yes

it is worthy.

Yes

I will plant a garden.

Yes

I will grieve as the leaves fall

and the ground freezes.

And Yes

I will awake to the blooms of June

and let my heart sing

once again.

Join Hannah in her upcoming workshop, Your Body is Beloved, on Saturday, August 26. In this hour-long workshop, we will begin to explore the stories we have about our bodies with curiosity and kindness. There will be reflection, discussion, and an embodied contemplative practice. If you have a fraught relationship with your body—or no relationship at all—this workshop may be a helpful first step.

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