Tag: covid19

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We are living and dying at the same time.

Every time I go home from a day in the garden, my body reminds me that I’m not a spring chicken anymore.

Hauling rocks, shoveling dirt to and fro, crawling around on my knees, digging and yanking roots, lifting a rock in and out of its chosen placement until I can form the hole to fit it perfectly — all of this is hard work. Good, old-fashioned, hard work.

And it’s just what I needed.

When the pandemic struck with all the subsequent repercussions, it didn’t take long for me to realize that I was grieving. …Grieving the staggering forthcoming loss of life, grieving the fragile nature of our society’s compassion for others, grieving the reality of elevated risk for so many people I love, and grieving the loss of the business revenue I had worked so hard to secure for our family. The grief became so overwhelming that I needed a place to work it out. I needed a constructive way to haul and shovel and crawl and dig and yank that grief out of my body.

Many nights I’d lie in bed after a day with the rocks and try to find a muscle that didn’t hurt. I pushed myself sore many times, and turns out it was the best remedy I could find. The grief became clarity, and the time in the garden helped to create a deep sense of spaciousness within me as I prepare for the days to come.

The truth is that the world is complicated. Life is messy, and so is death. People worldwide are dying daily from COVID-19. And other people are trying to figure out how to get back to work. We are living, and we are dying; we are dying, and we are living. Both are true, at the same time.

What’s also true is that we have an amazing opportunity right now to synthesize the best of our world pre-pandemic with all the lessons we’ve learned about ourselves and our world during the pandemic into a new “third way” of life post-pandemic.

It’s been longer than six weeks since I began working with the garden. I am finally beginning to feel more centered and ready to discern moving forward with my business. Things will be changing, and I’m still listening to learn the details of the best way forward. Yet one of the things I know for sure is that the Sunny Garden and I will be pals for a long time to come.

Ginger in the Sunny Garden, mid-April 2020
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Change is slow, or is it?

I started this project just weeks ago with an almost new pair of leather gloves. Heavy duty ones. 100% pigskin.

This morning I noticed a hole in the left index finger. I can’t believe how quickly I’ve worn a hole in these gloves.

I’m not ready to ditch them yet, of course. They still have plenty of life left in them. They’ll help me lift and haul lots more rocks. But maybe they won’t last as long as I expected.

I read a prediction (or maybe it was a headline or a tweet, not sure) that because of COVID19, by 2070 our planet would still be habitable, people would have a renewed connection to nature, and the climate in general would be on its way back. This is a stark turn of course from the climate predictions pre-pandemic that in fifty years our planet would not be well.

Maybe nature is showing us how quickly she can respond when we make big changes. Suddenly, because we don’t want to die, we are staying home. Because of this we already have clear skies over China and Los Angeles, dolphins returning to the Venice canals, and me digging in the earth, opening myself to her again.

Thanks for reading. I‘m off to grab my gloves and dig for a while.

It only took three weeks to wear this hole.
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I’m making decisions every day.

At the entrance to the garden, right where I’m setting stones, there’s a rich and lovely loropetalum. It was a new species to me, so I did some research.

I learned that it’s in the witch hazel family, that it can grow to 15 feet, and that it is ideal in woodland gardens. Ours had several little offspring, including a few in the pathway where I’m digging and setting stones. What do I do with them? 

I had to make decisions.

Decisions are important in life, and we make lots of them all day every day. What to eat. What to say. How to approach a problem. How to express joy and gratitude. 

During this pandemic, the decisions I’m making on a daily basis have changed. As a creative entrepreneur, my daily decisions were around production methods and studio equipment and staffing and design choices and authentic marketing. I do have an online e-commerce business and the ability to work with custom clients remotely, so some of that is still active in my days. But since my wholesale business is “on hold” indefinitely, a major portion of that is gone from my daily experience, at least for now. 

Yet I’m still engaged in the process of making decisions. And today it was time to decide where to transplant the loropetalum. For me, decision-making is more of a collaboration. It begins with discernment and a time of sitting with the issue at hand, being open to where Spirit may lead. 

I’ve been doing this for a while with that loropetalum, knowing the day was coming when I’d reach that spot on the path and they’d have to go then. One went to the front of the studio, one to the north side of the studio, and one south of the fence line toward parking spot #3. I hope they like their new homes. 

There’s still one more baby loropetalum left to transplant, but it’s not in the pathway. So, we can make that decision later. 

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1M1IZ4RgQ2l6zvpottgDJWxfTZFPyXYmo
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One more day of digging? Sounds good

I decided to ride up to Cedar Cross with Jimmy this morning, unplanned.

After yesterday’s dig, I was hopeful that one more day of the same could get the meditation space ready to receive the red clay that I would be excavating from the paths. After all, that was the impetus, or one of them, for the digging. I was having dirt management problems over on the pathway.

I was right. Four loads yesterday, and four loads today. I ended the day with library rods in place to mark the lower retaining wall that will be needed, and perhaps a small elevated section that could be used as a low lotus resting place, or a footrest perhaps. (Probably not the footrest thing.)

We have a retreatant this week who’s often ready to talk. She lingers and shares. She has a broad smile, and she loves Reba. I’ll call her J, and I learned that her retreat experience opened her, and that she has much new life in store.

Interacting with others at a distance of six feet or more is an interesting experience. I notice that I’m seeing the entire person, reading body language and overall energy more than facial expressions or vocal inflection. I’m uncertain whether this creates a deeper understanding or not.

J called the meditation space a “pocket.”  Ding! That’s it. Now this meditation space has a name, at least for me. The Pocket. Meditation is like being in God’s pocket, safe and along for the ride.

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1IIqGZKNIZa3BWoQsx9LnUNLJ_QbZJ86o
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Cedar stacks could be fence posts, perhaps

I’m already thinking about the fence.

Yes, I have a ton (pun intended) of stone work ahead, and still more digging and planting, and weeding. So, I’m not sure yet exactly when is the best time to move to the fence. But I’m thinking about the design.

There are a few sketches floating around in my head and on various pieces of paper. I’m leaning toward something kind of unconventional that will help to define the space, and also provide visual interest (thinking of the Sunny Garden as an extension of the studio).

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1jA9nyjy2sykPe2SeIh0MFWM-wMRdBgoc

It involves a vertical metal garden stake traveling through a hole drilled in the center of a lentil rock at ground level. Above the rock, sections of cedar with a hole drilled will be threaded onto the stake. Most of the cedar sections in the stack are short, but some are long enough to reach the next stack. Hence, fence.

What about the arbor? John was a great help in the garden today with his trusty loppers and the mower. And we realized that the mower doesn’t fit in the current footprint of the arbor. So, we’ll widen it just a few inches. Can the stacks extend eight feet high? Is there a metal stake of some sort that is, say, ten feet long? I need to consult Mr. Green Jeans.

Today was a busy day in the garden, and a hard day. I came home with an itchy rash after I spent most of the day on my hands and knees weeding and pulling roots, all while I was thinking about the fence, and about fences in general. We’re all functioning as if we are individually fenced. They call it “social distancing.”

This morning during morning prayers (it’s Monday) we talked about the pandemic. From now on, the paradigms of our lives will be pre-pandemic, pandemic, and post-pandemic. We will be forever changed, and we’re hoping for the better. As expressed by John, and I agree, there were many aspects of our society that were broken and are better left behind. I still find myself preoccupied wondering how bad it’s going to get, and for how long.

It’s like waiting for death.

And yet, I planted the tiniest of seeds a few days ago. And they’ve germinated already.

New life.

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=11Bm-LM9Ywa2icU3GwSMGzFfJzRQfsDO2
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Filling voids

I’m on my own today.

Maggie moved out of her room at WCU last week with Austin’s help. Today Mae moves out at UNCA. She’s allowed to bring one other person to assist her, and she has a three-hour window to pack up and move out. When she came home for spring break, she didn’t know that she would not be going back, per COVID19.

So, Reba and I headed up to work with the garden. John visited early in the day and commented on the frequency of my days in the garden lately.

“I’ve got a lot of time on my hands,” I replied. It’s a Thursday.

My wholesale business is “on hold” indefinitely. The venues to which I sell are all closed, deemed not essential. Suddenly I’m without income, and I’m left with questions about whether my work is “essential.” I always thought it was, believing that art elevates the soul, and that jewelry is an intimate art form in that it’s wearable and wrought with meaning for the wearer. Are those truths still true?

I’m ready for more stone work. But I decide to spend some time weeding in other areas to broaden my scope. I need time to think things through, when it comes to rocks, that is.

I have learned to think of the rock and the earth as concave and convex mirrors. And I’ve learned that soft red clay, which I often reach when I dig deep enough, is the perfect under layer for a stone that’s going to be walked on. I started out with slim stones, much wider than they are deep from the flat side. Turns out a stone with a flat side and a little more depth is much more ideal, more stable.

Digging deeper is causing some issues, bringing up stuff that I hadn’t planned to deal with. (Ha! Isn’t that how it goes. Should I start a list of garden metaphors for the contemplative life?) I have surplus red clay, and I have no idea what to do with it.

Until… I’m weeding on the east side when I notice a little tucked down area behind the main planting bed, just to the left of the arbor. I’m intrigued.

It would be an ideal place for meditation. There’s already what seems like a foot stone and a break in the stone wall. So, I set more stones to build a small retaining wall on the back side of the planting bed. And I kept weeding. Stoning. Weeding. And so on. And so forth.

The soil in the meditation space is rich. It’s on the downward slope from the entire garden, which years ago was graded and built up with fresh topsoil, and seeded as a lawn. There’s not much lawn left per se, but that topsoil is still there, much of it washed downhill from the main courtyard.

So, I’m thinking the thing to do is to 1) remove the topsoil from the meditation space and move it to the forthcoming center bed around the sculpture, 2) use the excess clay from the walkway to build up (level, with slight grade for drainage) the meditation space with a small retaining wall on the downside with the new fence line, and a stoned surface. That’s the order of operations as I understand it for now.

That, plus the plan to keep showing up to see what this garden has to teach me.