Day 70: Clearing the Garden

Yes, it's that time of year again. 

The weather is getting warmer, the birds and bunnies and bugs are out and about, and the grass is starting to grow again.

Time for me to head out to my garden for Hard Work and Deep Thinking.  This time, Savageman came as well, and worked in the raspberry patch.  He looks like he was attacked by a wild animal, but he got a lot of work done.  It was good productive time for both of us, in all different kinds of ways.

Working in the garden has always been a pensive activity for me.  Some people do their best thinking in the shower; I do mine working in the garden.

The garden is, more often than not, an apt metaphor for Life.  Probably why I find it such a good place to meditate, to let thoughts come and go, to check in with myself and listen to where I'm at.

Today, I was in a Good Place.

I found it so satisfying to pull out all the old stuff from last year and discard it so easily. 

Even stuff I had once liked, stuff I had thought I needed or wanted, stuff that was once important to me - I was able to see clearly for what it was and to let it go without a second thought.

I've come a long way.

The space in my garden is precious.  There isn't a lot of it, and I want it filled with good things, healthy things, things that really enhance the space, not stuff that I've been keeping just because I've invested so much effort into it that I feel obligated to hang on to it and continue to try to make it work in my space.

I wondered - how did it take me so long to learn this?

And I realized - it's a pointless question.  Regardless of how long it took to learn the lesson, the lesson has been learned and learned well.

And although I've done this same thing many times - pulled the same weeds and dysfunctional plants to keep them from choking my healthy growth - it's never been with this much ease and decisiveness. 

I still have more work to do, but the areas I cleared today are open and ready for nothing but Good Things to be planted there from here on out.  Sure, little weeds will pop up from time to time, but now that I know how to recognize them and have the will to discard them right away, they need never take hold again like they have in the past. 

What a feeling of excitement and optimism I felt as I once again filled the trash with crap that was sucking up valuable resources and space - space that I now have the option to fill as I wish, with only things that will make my garden - and my life - healthier and happier.

Already thinking of all the ways I can choose to use my space, now that it's truly free.

It's a wonderful feeling.

:-)