Weeding More Easily. A Lesson from My Garden
On a day when Stargazer lilies wake up and bloom, I learn a joyful lesson from my garden. A life lesson I’m glad to pass along to those of you who collect such things.
Whether you garden or not, come, check out what my garden taught me, Blog-Buddies. Since that lesson might help you, too.
First, the Amazing Blooms
Stargazer lilies are summer royalty in any flower garden.
- The colors.
- Plus the gorgeous shape.
- And, especially, that fragrance!
Altogether, I’ve got a total of three gorgeous Stargazers. One to the left of my house and two at the right of my house. For a month now, all three plants have been budding. Tantalizing me with intense gardener’s suspense. When-when-when will they finally bloom?
No Easy Weeding for Me, Though
Embarrassingly, how was I going to prepare for the summer glory in my garden? Sigh! By not weeding.
Fact is, gardens can be delightful to have. Delightful to tend, as well. Provided that you’ve got enough time.
But if you fall behind, how ominously the weed growth accumulates. An Overwhelmed Gardener — that was me. Reminiscent of a book by Louise Penny. “How the Light Gets in” is my favorite novel of hers. Set in a cold part of Canada, there was a chapter where snow began falling. And how did a major character react?
It seemed like snow was like chores falling from the sky.
Like that, me and my tough weeding chores! When would I find a good time for me to get out? When would I finally extirpate those hideous, ornery weeds!
“Peekaboo,” Said My Stargazer Lilies
Once again, I was looking forward to a day scheduled up fully, loads of delightful plans. Yes, delightful activities, most of them related to Energy Spirituality. About 10 hours’ worth of adorable activities. I’d lined them on my agenda, cute as dolls on a child’s bed.
Only what happened when I went out that morning?
Blog-Buddies, every day I do the self-maintenance activities in “The New Strong.” And I enjoy doing them outside weather permitting. Makes it all the lovelier!
So there I was, bright and early. You could say, my nose was already anticipating the fun grindstone in place for the day.
Outside I strode, aiming to get all my New Strong things done as quickly as possible.
Only what happened, soon as my feet hit the driveway in front of my house? A blooming Stargazer smiled at me.
Quickly I ran out onto the street and up the block a bit. What was happening with the others? These’re plants were also blooming, blooming, blooming.
Their Magnificence Dissolved All My Gardening Guilt
Sure, I anticipated that breathtaking Stargazer beauty. Only, as a kind of chore. Like, “Get everything ready, Rose. Because those flowers deserve it.”
Only when that magnificent beauty arrived, hello! Turned out, all the weeds didn’t matter at all. Weeded or not, my garden looked gorgeous. With those lilies the gorgeous-est plants of them all.
As a gardener, I found acceptance: In this blooming company, even my silly weeds could look gorgeous.
Incidentally, Have You Noticed Yet, Concerning My Tale of Easy Weeding?
Today’s teaching tale is an analogy about getting ready to co-create with God.
What if we’ve got personal STUFF, seemingly as unsightly as weeds? So what? Even then, we never know when we’ll have a moment of spiritual awakening.
Although we may not feel like we’re perfect enough… Evidently sometimes we are.
After Seeing those Blooms, I Found Easy Weeding
Uplifted and inspired, what did I do later that day? I grabbed my grubby gloves. Took out a yard waste bin. And started applying my shovel.
After only a few hours, I’d succeeded in turning my face bright red.
Okay, that did happen. But that wasn’t the beauty part.
Which is that I cleared out all the weeds in both sections of the garden in front of my house. Even took down a bunch of lilac limbs were taking over the flowerbed.
So proud, hearing every thunk of a falling branch. Maybe it was a little late. But I was managing to make a worthy setting for my Stargazer lilies.
What Counts as Beautiful, Anyway?
An elderly couple from Pakistan live a couple of houses down the block. It’s a bit of an extended family, with my friend Nargis, her husband and their adorable children. Anyhow, the grandparents were taking a walk when they passed my house. The grandfather pointed to an enormous blooming thing near to where I stood, sweating.
“What kind of flower is that?” he asked.
“It’s a weed!” I told him, happily. Sure, I took that thing out with a big shovel-shove. But what matters was how I hardly even minded the weeds.
By they time I’d filled up my yard waste bins, even those silly reject plants looked beautiful to me. Such is the transforming power of Stargazer lilies!
By the time I’d done weeding, even these yard waste bins looked pretty great to me.
In Conclusion
Probably you’ve got stories like that. Think about it for just a few seconds and probably you’ll find one. A story where some problem was dragging you down. You couldn’t make headway.
Until, surprisingly, you received help through Divine co-creation. Or you received a bit of spiritual awakening. And it happened although you hadn’t done everything perfectly.
Could be, that help gave you the motivation to make changes. For once, not having to work hard to earn your reward. Instead, you enjoyed a bit of what might simply be called, “The grace of God.”
