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My "Snow White" Experience I am a big nature fan. I love the outdoors, scenic views, rolling ocean waves, and I especially love communing with the little creatures of the land and water. As you now know from my previous blog, I am also an avid gardener too. So, when these two worlds collided for me, some would think that I would be in Snow White Heaven. But they would be so so wrong. My husband and I grow blueberries. We have eight bushes at the back of our fenced-in garden. The fence is to keep the deer out and it works very well. But it does not work at all on any of God's pint-size creatures. To combat this, my husband constructed an old pop-up awning frame with some bird netting over the top and laced to side panels that formed a nice walk-in room around the blueberry bushes, to keep our precious berries to ourselves. I felt it was an ingenious way to recycle the broken awning and we would be rewarded with bowls and bowls of berries all summer long. Unfortunately for us, Mother Nature took this opportunity to provide us with a mighty lesson on hoarding. It started when two catbirds arrived in June and cleaned the five early harvest blueberry bushes down to twigs while we were away on a five-day trip. My daughter and I tried to pick them before we left, but they weren't quite ready and we looked forward to coming home to fresh blueberry pancakes and muffins. What we came home to was two screeching catbirds thrashing about trying to find their way out of the netting. Evidently, eating all those blueberries disoriented their little bird brains and they couldn't remember how they got in. Score one for Mother Nature. No problem though, we still had our three most mature bushes left and packed with berries that would be ready in a few weeks. My husband and I went around and tied up places where the top piece of netting met the sides and weighted down the bottom to be sure those nasty birds could not get in. But for the next week, every morning, noon, and evening, I was greeted by one or two catbirds thrashing about the netting, along with two more bushes stripped and broken branches from the heavy birds. Score two for Mother Nature. No problem though, we still had the largest and fullest bush left that would not be ready until late July. We doubled our efforts of finding loose seams and reinforced the bottom netting to the ground with heavy bricks. We were sure we would get these berries and celebrate with a big fat juicy pie this time! The next morning, I slipped outside with a cup of tea to wander through my garden and check on things. I soon discovered a baby bunny running past the carrots heading for the fence. I surveyed for damage but couldn't find any. My lettuce was safely tucked under a special hoop and netting system and I snickered at the cute little bunny who could never outfox us. It was then that I heard the dreaded thrashing sound. Turning myself around, I looked upon the big netted blueberry room and almost dropped my cup. The Snow White experience I once daydreamed about as a little girl, had turned into a nightmare, as I watched one catbird, two robins, two chipmunks and a squirrel running all over each other trying to get away from the big gawking human that shadowed the makeshift cage. As I hurried to open the makeshift door, one robin crashed through the netting creating a four-inch hole that the other robin chose to ignore and instead made its own four-inch hole. The catbird was nice enough to use one of their holes to exit the place. Meanwhile the squirrel ran along the bottom edge lifting the netting up ever few inches until he found a gap between bricks to scurry out of and I didn't even see how the chipmunks left. Score three and game for Mother Nature. A little anger began to rise in my throat and I tried to remember that I love all of God's creatures. I wondered what Snow White would say, and yet, a few expletives managed to slip out of my mouth anyway. I looked at the blueberry bush, still relatively full, but gave in to the inevitable. I pulled back the mesh door and tied it open. I grabbed a bowl from the house and picked about a cup of berries that were ready and said goodbye to the rest of them. My husband and I resigned that day that you can't fight Mother Nature. And really, it wasn't like we depended on this for food. We are blessed with enough and I reminded myself that gardening was my hobby and a joy to see things grow and maybe now I should add feeling joy to give back to Mother Nature. And so we drew contentment from another life-lesson well learned. But the lesson wasn't over. It might surprise you too to find out that since we left the door open, we have not seen another bird or squirrel enter the blueberry room and those blueberries are popping up everywhere in our pancakes and muffins! The Simple Truth is that the energy of hoarding is fear-based and what we fear we attract as an experience. The fear of lack is what has driven many of us to overextend ourselves financially and energetically. When we are open and trust that we will always have enough then we attract that experience into our lives and those things we wish to have will come to us on the right terms and at the right time. No matter what challenges we face today, whether it is the loss of a job, or a loved one, or a dream, if we accept the lesson and truly trust that we will get through it, then that is what we will experience. Maybe that is what Snow White was trying to tell us all along! Darshan would like to know your Snow White story!
posted by Jodi at 2:04 PM
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Everyone Can Garden Every spring here in the North East, I begin to get edgy waiting for the warmer weather to come. My eldest daughter cannot for the life of her understand my insatiable yearning to dig my fingers into cold wet soil filled with plump earthworms and begin the laborious task of cultivating my next garden. But it is what my soul lives for every year. I tell my friends that gardening is my church in many ways. It is one of the ways that my soul chooses to express my connection with the Earth that I am privileged to share with all humans. A gardener is like an artist creating a masterpiece using Mother Nature as her canvas. I have noticed over the years that it is the planting time that brings me the most thrills. The crafting and arranging of the different flowers and vegetables gives me the most satisfaction. You would think it would be the other way around, and probably is for many gardeners, but I love the act of planting rows of seeds and watching which seeds open up and spring forth towards the sun. Sometimes all of the seeds come up, but other times a few come out much later, after I have assumed that they would not. These little seedlings are like finding a missed Christmas present tucked under the Christmas tree later on Christmas Day, after all of the wrapping paper and ribbons were cleaned away. The SIMPLE TRUTH is that everyone can plant a garden. Everyone can plant seeds, but they do not have to be seeds of flowers or vegetables. They can be seeds of hope or seeds of love. They can be seeds of inspiration or seeds of ingenuity. Some seeds may grow immediately, right before our eyes, giving us instant satisfaction. But some seeds will lie dormant waiting to burst forth as a truth, or an action, or an idea long after we walk away. Planting seeds of compassion or inspiration is planting trust in that which is greater than all of us but cannot be seen, be it called the Universe, faith, God, Gaia, or the Cosmos. It does not matter what results we see right away. Our mission as gardeners on Earth is to plant the potential for divine knowing to grow. How and when it happens is up to celestial timing and our success is only contingent on the desire to be a part of the evolution. What seeds can you plant today?
posted by Jodi at 12:21 PM
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