“And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been.”― Rainer Maria Rilke

There it is. A thin stretch of silvery-white light, cast wide and piercing across the horizon. It’s visible at dawn from the front window at the bottom of creaking stairs. Miniature orchids in tiny metal pots line the windowsill, a precarious stack of books balance on the ledge. This is the place for turning down the volume on the outside world, a place for utilizing the soft bench to lean on in meditation and prayer.
 
Leaves have left barren branches in the far distance, light reflecting off lapping water. Tall black silhouetted trees bunch together, allowing only this tiny sliver of early sun to emerge, a razor of light that in the verdant season goes entirely unseen. These are times for encountering what is hidden, for allowing that which is dying to fall to the earth and be absorbed again.
 
Soon the sun erupts. Silver turns to gold, a luminous glow emerging. A pastel sky expands upward and over the trees. These are the familiar cues of shorter days—evidence of that mystery which brings rhythm and reverence to the darkest hours. This is the way we can mark time. There it is, that light I’ve been waiting for. 
 
In the last weeks of summer, I noticed my mind working inside of me. It was not thinking or evaluating ideas but pounding out a barrage against my efforts. A subtle and persistent description and framing of the work I had done—the work I had not done—in my garden. It could have been in response to anything at all. 
 
There were significant flaws in my efforts to plant and harvest food this past spring and early summer. I had rushed to put seeds and starters into the ground, little time reserved for dwelling in possibility and consequence. I hadn’t mulled things over or spent time slowly absorbing the colorful images in my gardening books, nor refreshing my memory about crop rotation and the intelligence of plants protecting one another according to their order and position. Driving had replaced dreaming and the herding of young children through endless outdoor explorations was displaced with elaborate logistics and endless tasks in support of fostering bigger kids’ needs for sufficient engagement with the outside world.
 
Throughout the months of sun and longer days, I was away for long stretches and failed to make any arrangement for care. Seeds and roots I’d put into the ground were on their own to thrive or perish according to their own strength. The only hydration came down from the sky, the only pruning of excess was enacted by birds. The additional shoreline raised beds, where salty sea air seems to have a stunting effect on everything grown there, were all but forgotten. 
 
The tradition of gardening was underway more than the art, and I missed out on the inevitable reward of putting attentive and delicate care into the world. A come to life enactment of, “you reap what you sow.” 
 
I did transmit love to my plants initially—endearment passed from my heart into my fingers then pressed down into the soil. It was a fleeting affection that didn’t go the distance. Cognizant of what was happening, I kept sensing that the time to slow my pace and to show up was near, I kept hoping positive visions sent from other gardens I managed to help nourish would have some miraculous effect, doing what I couldn’t physically show up to do. For the length of the summer, the time and space to water and weed, to prune and assess needs in an unhurried manner always remained one step beyond my grasp.
 
It was difficult to decipher any sentiment brewing inside besides what I had done wrong. And yet, by any standard, the garden was not entirely unsuccessful. Because of my minimal effort, there were literal platters of edible food—overgrown squash, cucumbers and bushels of kale. When I did come home for short bursts of time, I found ways to chop and sauté, bake and spice even the most bedraggled of yield. There were beautiful marigolds—planted to protect tomatoes from insects—that grew large with luscious lemony-yellow blooms still flowering well into the fall. My garden looked deceptively fruitful, and guests commented as much. Even so, there was a lot of waste, and I could tell by the way I felt, that I hadn’t shown up in the way I’d hoped to. The swirl of green beyond my Peter Rabbit fence couldn’t compensate for the sense of hurry I’d felt around overgrowth and keeping pace with crawling things gnawing holes in leaves and overripe fruit, vegetables falling to the soil abandoned. 
 
--
Entering the garden on a final day before our family return to a school routine, I look around to survey the damage and consider what can be salvaged. In the process, I begin confronting my mind. Questions flood my being in a process of reflection and a desire to overcome a sense of defeat. I’m exploring the way I feel in relationship to a reproachful narration. Behind thoughts, I know, reside beliefs. I’m trying to get to the bottom of whether I deserve (what is behind) this internal tongue lashing. I’m trying to understand how it is we are called to live and be in the world. I might have appraised any number of more serious or trivial topics in this very same way.
 
What has been lost with my neglect? 
What has been gained?  
Why did I make the choices that I did?
Did I have a choice?
What season do I occupy?
What does it look like to really love?
What does it mean to sacrifice?
What is presence? 
Whom and what do I serve? 
 
In being with this commentary coming and going from my mind, various thoughts begin to relieve me from the pressure I’ve been feeling, the primary one being, I don’t always have a choice. In some ways I feel justified in letting myself off the hook—there were valid reasons for putting my attention elsewhere. I also know that if I’d been more disciplined, I might have eked out a few more hours to do the rich and rewarding work of tending what was growing. I also participated in a lot of other caretaking— important and necessary in this season. The results just weren’t as tangible as a colander filled with gorgeous ripe tomatoes. 
 
Digging my hands into the soil in one of the far beds where leafy greens and beets grow, I’m mulling over all these things. The ground beneath the raised beds is filled with wood chips—rough on my bare knees—so I reach for a green pad from a metal pail to kneel on. Far beyond the height of the growing season, there is no point in rushing now. I manage to slow everything down inside, content to get done whatever it is I can do in this brief, after-the-fact, period of time. I find myself returning to the wavelength where the practice of tending things that grow becomes mutually beneficial. I give to the experience—to the soil, the plants, the land—and the experience gives back to me. I land in a moment in time, receiving value through presence. This could be my one single moment, my last moment, the most significant moment that ever was. Everything is available to me here in this quiet and slow place.
 
After lingering for a while, I proceed in a manner intensely consistent with my summer conduct. Getting up from my weeding, I walk away from my plants, open the garden fence, closing it behind me with a little silver hook, never to return again before the arrival of the first frost. An entire bed of radishes, several stalks of brussels sprouts and at least one heaping platter of kale and herbs are left to perish,seemingly robbed from their ability to fulfill their purpose.

Weeks later, the dry and gnarled remains are beautiful with a thin layer of snow covering them. Regret has been replaced with hope and the thought to try again  in the Spring. There will be good reason to move more purposefully and to be more honest about the time I'll have. Maybe the whisper will be to shift gears, growing flowers for a time instead. In this way my garden can be left when needed, free to stretch out and blossom in excess, bringing bountiful color and beauty to the world with abandon. ✨