Gardening and The Art of Slowing Down

Gardening and The Art of Slowing Down

The other day I drove home in the middle of the day with garden supplies and noticed two deer meandering on our property.

The deer are never in a hurry and always seem pretty content.  Seeing them I felt contentment, though I did wonder if they just munched a little on our redbud sapling.  When they heard my car come down the dirt road the deer watched me and hung out while I experienced them.  Moments like that make me want to shout how much I love living here.

My husband and I bought this home in 2015.

I love the huge windows, the skylights, the woods, the deer, the birds, the fox, the moon and the stars (I know you can find them anywhere), and the wind chimes I placed next to the bench I sit on.  Not so much the Copperheads but so far we haven’t seen one yet this spring.  I’m so grateful and especially for our backyard garden area project.  You know that expression “it’s about the journey”?   Well, for me that’s so true, and it’s this house and our garden area that reminds me to just enjoy every day.  Also, I don’t worry as much about getting things done or doing more.

Working in the garden, adding more shade plants, tending to what we have, is a big enough adventure for me right now.

And I get to step back and see how it all looks and how lush it’s becoming.  Actually, our property behind the house needs a bit of work to match our vision for a shade garden, but we’re in no hurry.  We’ll buy more new plantings in the fall, with the exception of planting some ground cover in the next couple of weeks, before it turns blistering hot here.

The more I work outside in our yard, the more I realize that being in a hurry and busy is not a path to happiness for me.

Deadlines, other’s expectations, social events, networking, even travel which I usually love, just don’t do it for me right now.  I need breaks and lots of them and gardening, painting, writing, feel good to me right now.  When I relax I enjoy.  The tricky part is creating a balance between creating my ideas around my work, and time for me to just sit still.  There will ll be a time when I’ll want to do more, just not at this time.  When I start to feel like I should be further along in with bringing my ideas to action, or utter the words “I should be (fill in the blank) by now”, that’s a clue to switch gears and chill.

Gardening and the art of slowing down is about creating the best opportunities.  These opportunities more easily show up when I create a good balance between doing and being.

Maybe things will take a little longer but I’m a big believer in everything happens at the right time, in the right way anyway.

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