Gardening as Meditation

I saw her gobble down three or four of them, and then carry a fat grub to her two fledglings.  The baby birds are almost as big as she, but have not yet fully developed their wing feathers.  They would hop up into the hedge, and then practice short flights under their mother’s watchful eye.

In the distance, a mourning dove crooned.  A pair of blackbirds perch in the sycamore branches overhead.  The air is perfumed by the roses, blooming hedge, and the tulip tree’s blossoms.  The air is crisp, with a promise of heat later in the day.  A light breeze stirs the leaves, making the maple leaves twirl about.

Yesterday, I read an article about a book by neuroscientist Mark Waldman called How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings By a Leading Neuroscientist.  As I read the blurb on his website, I wasn’t totally certain how scientific his interpretations of his findings might be, but I was aware that over the years, there has developed a body of work on meditation, prayer, and changes in measureable brain activity.  After all, that was what the whole bio-feedback bit in the late 70’s was about.

I ruminated over how, in centuries past, my gardening activities on a Sunday morning would have been considered inappropriate at the very least.  Indeed, all over the near-by countryside, at that very moment, were probably people who were sitting inside four walls attending morning services, who would be of the opinion that my time could be better spent in similar environment.  The morning breeze combed gently through my hair, the trees lifted their branches to the sky.  A saucy cardinal (who wouldn’t hold still for his picture to be taken) shouted out, “What Cheer! What Cheer!”

In that moment, tensions I had been hoarding all week flowed away on the wind.  I felt rooted in the earth like the trees; the birds shouted out joy in living/being.  A soft rain of downy Sycamore seeds reminded that growth, living, death and rebirth are the eternal cycle, needing no explanation or excuse.