As soon as spring hits you can find me outdoors in my garden. It’s a perennial-only garden due to the tendency of local feral cats to use vegetable gardens as litter boxes and my inability to remember to water annuals.
Gardening As Meditation
But as far as perennials go – it’s beautiful and full of an amazing variety of flowers and weeds.
That’s okay because I enjoy weeding.
When I weed my mind turns off. I am entirely focused on the here and now of my garden. Worries, work, to-do lists, they all get shoved to the back of my mind as I decide which plants are going and which are staying.
This past week I pruned a 6 feet high shrub down to 3 feet. It was satisfying in that all I thought about was me and the tree.
There are other benefits to gardening: fresh air, sunlight and vitamin D, being in nature, exercise and learning to trust that the bees aren’t going to sting you.
But for me the most important benefit to gardening is turning my mind off and just being.
I also spend hours taking pictures of my garden, another meditative act, attached is one of my favourites: a daffodil having thoughts of its own.
