“Do not spread the compost on the weeds.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet
We’ve had a long winter here in the Midwest! Personally, I’m very happy to see that spring is finally springing. In preparation for the growing season ahead, I’ve been out in my garden quite a bit this past week.
A couple of years ago, in anticipation of the birth of our son, my husband and I put a thick layer of mulch down in all of our flower beds because we knew we’d have little time for gardening the first couple of years of his life. This strategy was definitely effective for keeping the weeds at bay, but unexpectedly some of our plants did not return the following year. We apparently laid the mulch on a bit too thick!
So, this year I’m in the garden early, pulling back the mulch from around the plants that have survived the last couple of seasons. There is no doubt they have proven their hardiness and capacity to exist in a less than ideal environment. But for as much as they’ve survived, as a gardener, the fruit of my labor really occurs when my garden thrives.
There are so many factors within an environment that can stifle a plant’s growth and expression ‒ the soil may lack sufficient nutrition, it may get planted too deep, receive too little or too much light, be crowded out by other plants, beset by disease or infested by insects.
The same can be said for us. The environments we live in – be they self-created or self-perpetuated ‒ have the capacity to enhance or deplete our personal expression. It is one thing to be able to survive a less than ideal environment, but thriving is another matter entirely.
Fortunately, we are the cultivator of the garden that constitutes our life. If we are paying attention, we have the ability to make subtle, or not so subtle, changes that bring us closer to wholeness. Our lot is not cast by the past, but by the decisions we make in the here and now.
So, if we’ve decided it’s time to stop surviving and start thriving, it is right here, in this moment, that we can choose to take actions that create a life that supports the natural unfolding of who we are.