June 2017 | SPRING BLOOM

Diana, from Northern California, responded to the seed-thoughts of May’s Earth-Love Newsletter:
How does the magic of being in the garden work? What does the Earth do that restores us to ourselves? If it’s a state of being, how do we carry it into our busy lives?
She included photos from her garden to accompany her sharing.

Two nights ago I slept for the first time this year with both windows open, awakening to the delicious sweet sound of bird song mingling with crickets, slipping in like flutes on the warm air. I went in and out of sleep in those early hours, feeling gently cradled by the sounds from the natural world. Such a treasure, the soothing chorus.
When I got up, I realized I needed to get outside quickly before it was too hot to pick some flowers for a gathering I was hosting later on. Now I discovered that since the heat had come, so many blooms had burst onto the plants!

Just two weeks prior I had been moaning to a friend about all the plants in my garden that hadn’t made it through the wet, cold winter. But when I stepped out to see what was there for picking, I found that the rose bushes had burst more abundantly than ever, and that the alstromaria had finally popped into color as well. The array of warm colors and the delicate curves of the petals filled my heart with their sweetness. I carried this into my day by arranging several bouquets, taking photos of these at various times, and by the next day, bringing them to bless the center of a meditation circle I participate in at a women’s homeless shelter. The state of being that garden flowers bring to me is about beauty. Carrying that beauty inside, I feel serenity and calm.

Rattlesnake Grass

You must have seen the dewy grasses dressed in Juning gold?

Each twin top streaked with reddish-purple capes,

each lush, layered body tanned in tawny shades.

And beside them, soft ears of venetian rose, hair-like strands

perched on willowy stems.

A touch of swaying bells, faint rattling shakes,

and you find the youthful wonder

that sent you halfway around the world

quite near, quite near.

Strings of Shining Silence: Earth-Love Poems