"What do you give back to your garden?"

Mark was talking to our friend Lani; she and her husband were vending a few booths down from ours, and during a slow time she and Mark were trading gardening stories.  Mark had shared with Lani that 2010 and 2011 were poor gardening years for us, although the years before had been very prolific. 

Mark talked about the good management he gives the gardens, the organic fertilizer, the mulching, the lack of chemicals.  Lani took it all in, but that wasn't what she was asking.  Her question was about the spiritual connection with Mother Earth, and how we honored the little patch of her skin, that is our garden area.  "Do you give tobacco," Lani asked, "that garden has given you a lot over the years.  What do give it in return?"  Not much stops Mark in his conversational tracks, but Lani did!  He squirmed around, trying to come up with an answer that was anything than the truth, which was....we give back very little. I don't know what Mark will do to remedy the imbalance from his view, but knew I had to do something of my own.

My way of giving back to the garden has been to visit it during these warm winter nights, and be thankful there.  I have gone to each garden and looked at the moon, and talked about how much I enjoy the whole process of gardening; the excitement of the little seedlings sprouting in the kitchen, the maturing plants growing stronger every day, the way the sun warms the leaves and makes everything smell so good.  I've given each garden showers of cornmeal from one of my mom's Pueblo pots, reminiscing about her gardens in California and remembering the love she had for all growing things.  I've taken the drum I made into each garden and played a heartbeat, letting my love for the garden and Mother Earth swell through the air and into the soil. 

I think the best thing I've given back to the garden has been appreciation.  Attention.  Thanks.  So often during the gardening season, the demands of keeping up with the weeding and mulching and canning and drying and....and...and...are too much for me.  There is always more to do than there is time to do it in, and when the first frost draws near I'm very ready to be done with it!  The interval since the active gardening season ended has given me a chance to put some distance between what comes between the garden and I other days, and concentrate only on what it offers right now.  Peace.  Incubation.  Promise. 

Gardening season will be here before we know it, and what frustrates me about gardening will be here too.  I hope to carry forward the good feeling of communion with the garden this year.  It feels healthy to give back to the garden.  I like it, and it feels like the garden likes it too.  I look forward to drumming there the year 'round, reconnecting with thankfulness and tuning into the deepest vibrations of Mother Earth