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This past Saturday, the Jubilee Community Garden celebrated its 5th Growing Season with a potluck luncheon. The transformation of the space since March is remarkable and everyone was recognized for their individual efforts in growing food. I am very excited to now be able to pick fresh lettuce leafs from my plot.

As a way to meet people who are enthusiastic about gardening and community, I have decided to take a plot at the Jubilee Community Garden located in Centennial Park, downtown Duncan.

Through involvement with the garden, I was fortunate to be invited to sit in on the “orientation tea” for volunteers with GardenPals, an intergenerational gardening program that links local school children and seniors.  Looking at the proudly displayed thank you posters from last year’s student participants, it is plain to see that special connections have been made to the space, providing grounds for community belonging for all those involved.

At this time of year, our fresh produce sales include organic kale, purple sprouting broccoli, arugula & mixed salad greens. As well, we sell our apple cider, dried herbs, wooden planters and a small selection of nursery plants. The farm also supplies a number of local restaurants with high quality mixed salad greens on a weekly basis.

Left: This picture of the backyard was taken yesterday (middle of April on Vancouver Island).

Right: It’s hard to imagine that I was learning how to prune the fruit trees back in the middle of February when temperatures where considerably warmer and sunnier than the last few days. Cutting out all the suckers and removing dead and diseased branches was a good workout for my arms.

The Bridge ~ Step 95 ~ Learning To Love Better All things are moving toward that which you are moving toward   Whenever the hustle-bustle of life starts to weigh heavily upon you, and your mind seems to run around in never ending circles, one of the quickest ways to rebalance yourself is to make a connection with the Earth. Go out and get your bare feet on the lawn or in the sand at the beach. Just as your TV reception will clear up when you run a wire from the antenna to the ground, so shall your thoughts and feelings smooth out when you connect with Mother Earth. It’s one of the easiest ways for you to love yourself.   In fact, there are many ways of learning to love, not only yourself, but those around you, as well. Another is to plant and grow some food of your own. Most people don’t realize it, but something very special happens when we nurture and consume food that we have grown for ourselves. Not only does the life force in it transfer to us when we eat it, the love that we put into caring for it has a magical way of returning to us from Mother Earth herself. Indeed, she befriends all those who care for the least of her creatures.   And it doesn’t matter whether it’s an acre of organic gardens you’re growing or a single kumquat tree or tomato plant you keep on the patio. It can even be a batch of sprouts (for those who want the quickest results) that live on your kitchen windowsill. Regardless of what you plant, you will have shortened the gap between you and your food supply by being just that much less reliant on someone else to provide you with your food. It is a subtle shift, but one that raises your Spirit the minute you cover the little seeds over with soil and water them.   Back on the farm, BJ used to say that if we wanted to learn to love better, it would be a good idea for us to start out with plants. Plants are the easiest, he said, because they stay in one place and hold still when we’re working with them. They also have a way of reflecting the love we give them back at us right away by perking up when we water them, and greening up quickly when we fertilize. And, they won’t hurt us if we accidentally harm them (unless, of course, we get too close to the ones with thorns!)   After we get the hang of taking care of plants, and they are thriving happily under our supervision, we can go on to animals. Animals, he said, are a little trickier to love because they move around. Unlike plants, it’s more difficult to get them to do things they don’t want to do. Oh yeah, and they also make their share of noises and messes that will sometimes surprise us.   Then, after we get pretty good at taking care of plants and animals, we can move on to learning how to love people better. According to BJ, people are much harder to love because not only do they move around and make messes, but they’ll talk back, change their minds, be unloving in return, and do all sorts of things that will challenge our patience. They’ll even bring out the worst in us (often by unknowingly providing the adversity we need the most), and sometimes, he said, it can take years before we see the results of our love.   Conversely, he also stated that they can bring out the best in us. This usually happens when we’ve matured enough ourselves to the point where we are able to set aside all of our personal reactions to their adversities, noises, messes, and so forth, and see into the core of who they really are. That’s when we really learn to love. And ironically, that’s also when our love comes back to us. My intention for today is: I Intend that I am deliberately learning to love, that life is my teacher, and my everyday experiences are the perfect lessons I need to move forward.   *A friend of mine shared this message with me as he saw the connection to horticultural therapy. The Intenders Bridge is at http://www.intenders.org.

Copyright © 2008 htstudent. Hosted by Edublogs.]]> http://horticulturaltherapystudent.uniblogs.org/2008/04/20/232/feed/ http://horticulturaltherapystudent.uniblogs.org/2008/03/26/212/ http://horticulturaltherapystudent.uniblogs.org/2008/03/26/212/#comments Thu, 27 Mar 2008 03:47:23 +0000 htstudent http://horticulturaltherapystudent.uniblogs.org/2008/03/26/212/

As plants germinate in earth’s soil
And rain streams down from heaven above,
So love awakens in human hearts
And wisdom flows to human spirits.

-Rudolf Steiner (1861 - 1925)

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed–and gazed–but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850)