As the warmer weather comes in, some days nicer then others,
I realize how much we need to get out into the beautiful nature.
As you walk down the fairway of life you must smell the roses, for you only get to play one round.
Ben Hogan
You are precisely as big as what you love and precisely as small as what you allow to annoy you.
Robert Anton Wilson
No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.
Aesop
Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don’t recognize them.
Ann Landers
Hello everyone and welcome to August. So far it’s been a pretty wet summer with temperatures below normal. However that hasn’t stopped our garden from growing some absolutely incredible food. So far we’ve picked over 10 lbs of Zucchini, 2-great big squash and a couple of Daikon roots that are about 3-4 lbs each. Brian is upstairs pickling them as I type. (He’s such a good helper). Our herbs are growing at a rate I’ve never seen, although it’s only the 3rd or 4th year for many of them. The garlic is drying in the basement, picked out of necessity due to the very damp soil conditions or so Brian says.
The Sage Bush that I accused Brian of killing by moving it – twice – is back and back with more leaves than I’ve ever seen. I’m in such gratitude. What a splendor! I know he felt bad about possibly killing a bush I’ve owned for decades. He spent hours weeding, cutting the Lavender back, laying down that ground cloth stuff and covering it with pea-gravel and surrounding it with rocks we found free on the Internet all in the hopes of bringing my Sage back to life.
Let’s use that Sage Bush as a Metaphor. She’s the little “I think I can, I think I can” gal – never giving up even after being uprooted and moved twice in 2-years set in a place where she had to endure competition and a hotter, dryer environment. She was ignored, abused and finally given up for dead. We could have easily written her off, pulled her out by the roots and planted a new, improved bush. Think of the many homeless, lost and forlorn people you see on the streets or hear about in the news. Imagine if they had received some help, some nurturing, if their their minds had been “fertilized”, or if they had been protected from abuse by more loving parents and teachers. I’m sure many of them could be contributing to society instead of living in its shadows. I’m also sure that many of us reading this could have easily ended up in some other place if we had made different choices in life or didn’t have a support system of a loving family or community to help us when we were in a dark or desperate place. That’s why community service is so important. Helping others help themselves is a hugely rewarding use of one’s time, energy and resources. As Aesop so beautifully put it in The Lion and the Mouse, “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted”.
I have cleared many weeds from the garden this summer, taking a hour here and there or even 15 minutes to ground myself when life gets busy.
I find as I clear my outdoor garden, my focus is more clear, and I feel lighter. If you need to find inner peace, try starting with some garden work, it has done very much for all areas of my life.
Namaste,
Karen
The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.
-Albert Einstein
(Pic from the Hubble Space Telescope)
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