My gardens are what they are, where they are, how they are. They emerge, they bloom and blossom, they grow, spread, produce fruit, ripen, die back, and rest through the months when the sun goes south for the winter.
The gardener (me) is always dreaming them new, making lists, adding spaces, and trying to control the mugwort (the most uncontrollable blessing and bane a garden can have.) I work in the gardens almost daily from March through November, and while my body rests from November through February, my planning mind and creative imagination are busy integrating what I have learned, deciding what I will focus on when the sun comes north again.
I realized (another “aha!” in a couple weeks of them) that at this time of year my task orientation (the force is strong in me on the task side) takes over, and the relationship I have with my self, and with the garden, become untended. This is never good for me, or anyone, or anything else. It is also when my anxiety builds, as it has since yesterday.
I have used The Enneagram for decades; it is one of the best and most comprehensive personality tools I have found for understanding myself (a life-long process) and others. If you are unfamiliar, you can learn more at The Enneagram Institute (my best resource,) and a thousand other places, but be discerning. Here is the link to The Enneagram Institute.
https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/
Anyway, my personality type is heart centered and task oriented: hence my anxiety. I have also looked outside myself for my sense of self. We are all such complicated beings.
I woke this morning with a task list four miles long; all the things I need (really that my ego needs) to get done in the fine weather promised for the weekend. I can be a real task-master and the person who bears the brunt of my lists is me. This begins to end with awareness. Thank heavens, it begins to end.
This photo of mugwort comes from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s “Weed of the Month” page.
I know I will always be organized. This is a blessing and a challenge like mugwort. Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) is a member of the daisy family (Asteraceae,) it is a plant that spreads easily in poor soils and along wild edges. Like comfrey and nettles, it aerates the soil, holds it together with its roots, and brings nutrients to its leaves which make them a good, free, and very abundant, “chop and drop” fertilizer. Its leaves can also be dried, tied, then burned as “smudging sticks.”
In the old wisdom, mugwort is associated with dreams, and for its protective properties. Named for the Greek Goddess, Artemis, whose domain is the moon, wildness, and wilderness, Artemisia grows wild and with vigor. Mugwort will also take over anywhere she finds an in, just like a gift for organization.
Mugwort has taken hold all along the edges of my property. I have begun speaking to it as I chop the stems off at their bases and leave the leaves to fertilize and protect the soil. I say thank you for its gifts; I ask it to recede to the edges to make room for its cousins.
“Getting things done” often takes hold of me, checking off items on a list soothes me like a piece of dark chocolate can. It soothes me (and there is a blessing in that,) yet it is not life-giving. For me, heart-centered as I am, healing is in relationship: with Mystery, with myself, with beloveds and neighbors, the earth and my gardens, and life in all its cycles. Organization can be good when it is used to serve The Good. Sometimes I need to say thank you for its gifts, and ask it to recede a bit to make room for my heart. Today is a day for that.
May I use my gifts in service of my heart and The Good. May it be so. May you use yours in the same way.
Courage my dears. Love one another.
