Green Healing ~ Horticultural Notes

And the beat goes on…

Quietly and Softly

Colorful Communications

We always begin Horticulture Therapy by gathering in a circle to share plant news.  This time together is good, interesting and takes us in many directions.  We often visit our past of garden or plant memories and look to the future with hopeful or creative garden dreams and ideas.

Last week I arrived just in time to hear another participant sharing his idea for a creative planting container.  The young man was more engaged than usual and when he smiled and became excited about what plants to choose and where he would put his new container, I felt like I saw the heart of horticulture therapy.

I like to call these times Healing Happenings, which are moments in time when hope or happiness fills my heart and mind.  I’m not talking about everything being right or all problems being fixed.  I’m talking about a little piece of time when worry and stress take a back seat and the beauty of life emerges.

Sweet Peas make Smiles

Personally, ‘healing happenings’ include moments when I enjoy what I imagine most Mothers do, which is seeing our children, no matter what age they are, smile and be happy.  They’re also moments when I feel that my family will be okay.

Therapeutic Gardening

“Drop by drop would make a lake.” (Azerbaijani proverb)

There is always hope in a garden.  We hope it grows.  We hope it rains.  We hope to have a good harvest of food or lively blooming flowers that paint our world pretty.   I’m sure hope is part of why it feels good to work in a garden, whether you have a large field or a modest arrangement of containers on your porch.  Each day you have hope.

The Intern in an early Garden

And then, there is faith.

new lettuce and a few sprouted carrots

“When I’m in my garden, life’s troubles crumble away with the rich black soil between my fingers. I’m fully in my body, out of my head, my worries banished. My garden is my church, my time there sacred.”  (Garden your troubles away, by Amy Koran, PsycheScoop).

lettuce and carrots growing

As always, I hope you too will have some ‘Green Healing’ moments.

Thank you for visiting Dogkisses’s blog.  Please feel free to leave a comment.

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Green Healing ~ Imagining Nature

If I could be a plant, I’d fancy being a ‘May flower’ that surprises people walking by my home.  I would most enjoy living under the shade of the great green leaves.  I could have a private life, having just enough neighbors to chat with after a light rain.  I’m quite sure that if I was a May flower, then the other Mays and I would sing our stories and have a wonderfully cheery life!

If I wanted the sky to see more of me,

a pretty Pitcher plant I’d like to be.

How wonderful life would be if I was medicine to make people feel better!

If I was a Lavender plant, people would say ooh and aah and, how lovely you smell.  I’d take pride in soothing minds and spirits.  And Sage!  I would cleanse their homes and make the turkey taste good! I could be a Pineapple Sage and people would make me into tea.  I’d live best by the doorsteps where my fragrance and delicate red flowers would remind my people that I await their return.

There’s so many choices of flowers I’d like to be!

I know of a garden that has a good life.  It isn’t very large, but it’s medicine is big.  People gather ’round the rolling mounds of rich dirt to learn and grow.  If ever I was a garden, then that’s the one I’d surely be.  I’d grow yummy green Chard and pretty purple Cabbage, make friends out of strangers and whisper sweet secrets to the good kind humans who come to take care of me.

Thank you for visiting Dogkisses’s blog.  Please feel free to leave a comment and I hope you too have some ‘Green Healing’ days!

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