I have often thought a garden reflects the keeper’s state of mind.  I imagine that an overgrown, stressed-looking garden is kept by someone who has very little space in her life, or who is not coping well with the circumstances she faces.  A professionally tended, manicured, “perfect” garden belongs to an uptight, image-oriented man, or perhaps to someone who is prone to handing off responsibility for his life to someone else.

Recently I stepped out into my yard and could almost hear my heart break.  In the middle of May, autumn leaves still lay on the surface of many of the garden beds.  Weeds were throwing a party in there.  Grass had swarmed the edges so I wasn’t really sure where the lawn ended and the gardens began.  Every angle of this picture told the story of a woman who has been too long away from her land, too involved in other things, and not grounded in her work. It has been a tough year establishing my yoga business and working to understand who I am and how I operate within this business world.  Like the dense, compacted soil beneath my feet, my spirit has hardened making it difficult for new and beautiful things to grow.

This past weekend I waded through the piles of things stored for winter in the back of the garage, pulled out my favourite garden tools, and made my way to the patch underneath the now massive honey locust tree in the centre of the backyard.  I began digging and fluffing the earth, and pulling at the weeds, looking for signs of health and life within the soil.  With the sound of birds laughing overhead, I surged with joy at the sight of a fat earthworm; there was hope for this garden.  Did the same hold true for my heart?

As I continued tending to the patch of earth, my mind wandered and I began to realize how very much gardening is like meditation.  When I garden, I pull weeds and nourish the soil so that the new and beautiful life growing there has a chance to flourish.  I edge the beds drawing clear boundaries between what I want to happen in that space and what I don’t, and I move things around so they make better sense.  I notice the plants that have encroached on my garden from other yards and I decide which I will adopt and allow to remain, and of which I will dispose.  I create space for beauty to flood in.

The same holds true when I come to my meditation practice.  How long I’ve been away will tell me how many weed-thoughts are likely to have encroached on my mind.  Breathing in and out, I begin plucking at the thoughts that have overwhelmed my personal space, choking out any real possibility for clarity and evolution.  Like my garden’s plant invaders from other environments, I notice thoughts in my psyche that are not mine, seeds that have been planted by outside forces like family, friends, work connections and the culture-at -large, and that have taken root in my mind.  Which do I allow to stay and which do I remove?  In what way shall I edge and boundary the beds of my mind?  The choice is entirely mine.

By coming to my practice over and over again I become the gardener of my existence, creating an environment that allows the winds of enlightenment to blow through, and the colours of creation to light up the sky of my mind.  Gently inhaling and exhaling, I nudge out the dense thoughts that keep me downtrodden like cold, unmanaged soil; it is so much easier to do when the weed-thoughts are still small and less established.

The soil beneath the tree in my yard now looks fresh and fluffy, tender loving care having prepared it to properly sustain new life.  The boundaries around what stays and what goes are a bit more defined.  Bright pink and white flowers planted in the openings add colour and zing to the previously drab, sad space.  The splash of colour beneath the tree has painted a streak upon my soul.  Stepping forward into my life, I bring breath and awareness, the “earthworms” that signal a renewal and regeneration of the tender earth that binds me.   With a lightness of being, my laughter meets that of the birds and, together, we float through the sky–free.  The garden has shown me there is indeed hope for my heart as well.