Give me a garden

I am tired, every cell is on standby, my mind resting in a nest of cotton wool.  Yet how lovely it is to come into the garden and feel its peace, to see the brown leaves glowing on the green grass, to smell their spicy earthiness where they lie in number under the oak tree.  What do people do who don’t have gardens to sojourn in, or neighbouring fields or woods to wander through?  The frazzle caused by my busyness seeps away here, I am earthed. 

Each day it is different, each day brings new weather or degrees of season, leaves newly grown or turned or shed.  I have created a space here to rest and write, a seat hidden away from the house in my gravel garden with a light for the mornings when it is still night.  I make a habit of coming first thing, with pages to write or earthprayers to read. And it feeds me as much as the following breakfast.  Yet I used not to come like this, my garden lay here to be viewed through windows, or weeded and worked in, unless the sun called me out to sit and read.  What I missed. 

It takes a while to notice the things that give succour to your soul and to weave them into your life’s pattern, not as a duty, but as a gift.  Things on the other side of now, of the immediate world of thought and action, are always there but can be hidden or forgotten.  Give me a garden to extend my roots, to cleanse my being, to restore my soul.