Hello my loves,

There’s so many reasons that I love to garden. I’m a cook, so growing my own produce in whatever capacity I can, from a windowsill pot to a backyard vege patch, totally tickles my fancy. But learning to grow has taught me so much more than the joy of plucking a fresh, fragrant herb straight from my garden. Nature is a window to deep life lessons, and today I want to share some of what I've learned.

Go towards the light

To grow a plant, you plant a seed. Duh, right? But let’s take a closer look at the seed’s journey. To find the light, it must first be in darkness. A seed goes into the ground. Into blackness, into darkness, into the unknown. And at first, nothing happens. Nothing visible, anyway. For a couple of weeks after planting, the seed is enveloped in darkness under the earth. From there, it must find the light. It feels the way forward, sensing the right direction in which to send its first delicate sprout, and then following that direction with action. It can’t ask the internet ‘which way is the light?’ and then spend three days lost in a Reddit thread trying to figure it out. It has to go within and use its own energy, the strength inside, to feel the way.

Right now, aspects of our world can seem very dark. You might feel trapped by it all, choked or surrounded, like the walls are closing in. There’s so much playing out in 2020, it’s an enormous year of change and transition, and it’s natural that you might feel lost, frightened, resentful, powerless or confused at what it all means. But the seed holds the answer. I promise you this: you have everything you need to find your path. You just need to make like the seed, go within, and feel your way. In your own time, at your own pace, releasing the need to push or rush. Use the force my darling, and go towards the light. It’s there that your future lies.

It’s not all about productivity

We’ve created a very exhausting world for ourselves over the last couple of thousand years. If we’re not always on, always pursuing the next life or career goal, always pushing forward, we feel like there’s something terribly wrong. Although, interestingly, even when we’re in the middle of pushing forward, chasing the mortgage or the promotion or the partner, we still feel like there’s something terribly wrong. When was the last time you got what you wanted, and then felt happy for the rest of your life? It just doesn’t work like that. Life moves in cycles and seasons, just like nature. And they all serve a purpose. Once the seed is planted, yes, it sprouts and grows. It flowers and fruits and nourishes the earth, giving succor to bees, birds and humans. But that can’t last forever.

Rest is as crucial as production – even more so, in fact. There is no plant on earth that fruits and produces relentlessly, forever. It’s just not how it works. And it’s not how we’re meant to work either. We have to allow ourselves time to rest. To be in our own personal winters, in stasis, in limbo, floating in delicious nothingness. To walk, to read, to bath, to rest. To dream. To unpick all those nasty, sharp, awful little hooks of self-comparison we like to catch ourselves on, and sooth them over with deep self nurture. By allowing yourself time to just be, you're laying a nourishing foundation for your next season of growth.

Don’t let outward conditions dictate your inner state

I used to fear for my garden every time a storm blew through. Where I live, hail sometimes happens, as do whipping winds, and it used to twist my heart, thinking of my poor plants out there, exposed to elemental extremes. But do you know what I’ve observed? Plants simply weather the storm. By bending with the winds, many of them come through remarkably undamaged. It’s almost like they relax into the storm, and just do what they need to do to ride it out. Even if they are damaged, new growth soon appears, and after a little while, there’s no suggestion of the tough conditions they’ve navigated. Until the next time, that is.

My point is, the tree doesn’t run from the storm. It can’t. It doesn’t ring its best friend to bemoan the state of the world either, cloaking itself in yet another victim story (“god Rebecca, why is it always me who cops the hail? It’s just not fair!”). Plants simply surrender to what is, bending with the winds, and accepting the world in all its states. As humans, we’re our own worst enemies when it comes to life’s storms. We fight them, we bemoan them, we resent them, we try to run. But just like the tree, we cannot avoid them. Storms roll through all of our lives, and they serve a purpose. They may feel violent, but their winds also spread seeds and nutrients across the land, paving the way for a new harvest to flourish. If we relax into them, and look for the wisdom they’re trying to show us, we might find we don’t feel so broken by them after all.

And so my loves, on we sail. The first tiny promises of spring are starting quiver in my garden, and I’m going to spend my weekend sinking into the joy of planning what will fill the beds this year. I also have a beautiful lunch planned with some very special souls on Sunday, along with some comfy couch time, absorbed in a new book. I can’t wait. Until next week my loves 💛.

Love, Rachel xxx