A Reminder of Reality
One of the problems many of us suffer from is the delusion that life is easy and that convenience comes without costs. Too many of us think we should have what we want, when we want it, without pain or difficulty. Gardening reminds us that it takes time and effort to bring what we need to fruition, that it requires thought, attention, and persistence to harvest the things that sustain and nourish us.
Gardening also reminds us that failure is inevitable and that our best efforts can be undone by factors beyond our control, and that the only option is to learn, adapt, and try again. It reminds us that if we give of our time and attention, if we expand our knowledge and capability and apply this growth, our efforts will deliver delicious returns.
A Time to Look Inside
Gardening can be a social activity, but even then it is often done in silence. It occupies our hands and gently engages both the mind and spirit. Even when we are alone, we are in communion with nature. All of these give it an almost meditative or prayerful quality.
“Few activities lend themselves to introspection better than gardening. It’s largely solitary. It calls up the most fundamental human adaptation to life on Earth. It’s often painstaking, always unhurried, resistant to instant gratification, and meditative in every way,” writes Epoch Times contributor Eric Lucas.
Gardening can give us a contemplative moment to reflect, a time to see ourselves more clearly and gain the insight we need to resolve those malignancies of the spirit that cap our kindness and truncate our forbearance.
An Offering
Gardening often delivers a bounty beyond our needs. It gives us a heart-felt wealth we can share with our neighbors, opening a channel of warmth in our community.
These offerings create a connection that can render political divisions impotent. Put another way, it is difficult to begrudge someone a difference of certain opinions when they share their hand-grown sustenance. While conflict entrepreneurs may try to divide us so fiercely we are unable to muster the intention to understand one another, a bag of tomatoes can remind us that we depend on each other for safety, security, and prosperity.
Gardening can grow good will.
An Overflowing Bounty
Gardening offers so much more than I can begin to mention here, including research-backed findings that it improves our mental and physical health. Those are certainly important, but they are only a part of what we will harvest when we turn the soil, set our seeds, and nurture growth and abundance.
