Entering into Relationship

When I entered into relationship with the bees on my land, the land responded. The land flourished for two reasons; I planted more flowers and herbs and the land now had a partner, not just a gardener.

The first reason is easier to explain. I wanted more food for my bees, plus I love gardening anyway, so I planted more flowers. Even the years where I had too much to do and said I just couldn’t add more gardens to care for this year, I would add to the gardens due to having goat manure every spring upon cleaning out the pen after winter. I’d look at that amazing soil, sigh and bring it out in the wheelbarrow to the garden area to expand more. Perhaps the goats are in cahoots with the bees as well as the land itself. Hmmmm….I will have to look into that more.

Anywho, I planted more plants and more variety as well. I especially loved the herbs as it was so easy to see their medicine in so many ways, both for me and the bees and other pollinators that also benefited from the work that the bees inspired me to take on.  And as I planted more flowers and herbs, more bees and other pollinators came to share in the bounty.

The garden expanded, not just by my desires and plantings, but also how it wanted to expand.  I began to see new plants that I had never seen there and had not planted, like St. John’s Wort and Mugwort.

It was then, upon seeing the new plants, that I realized the land was working with me, with gentle hands, creating with me.  The land was always creating, I was the one who just realized that we could work together and find a way to communicate.  The winds breathed sacred breath across the gardens and the plants whispered their hopes and dreams to be carried through the air across the land.

It was soon after, walking through the gardens, making my quiet observations, thinking my own thoughts, that the land responds not just to our physical adjustments to the land, but also our invisible thoughts.  One day, I find myself thinking about my grandfather, an unlikely gardener, but a gardener and nature lover at heart.  I giggle as I think of his wild garden full of tiger lilies, not the day lilies you see everywhere now, but the real tiger lilies with spots.  It makes me smile to think of him, his seemingly gruff, stern, large being to most, but he always had a sly smile and wink for me.  I would sit in the grass, unsuccessfully looking for 4-leaf clovers as he weeded his wild gardens of tiger lilies.  He’d come behind me without me knowing, look over my shoulder, and bend down to pick one for me.  These thoughts are in my heart as I walk through the garden.  I smile and keep walking, enjoying the flowers in my own garden, seeing the similarity in “wildness” as my grandfathers gardens.

Two days later, two beautiful tiger lilies bloom in my garden.  I stop in my tracks and stare at them.  I have not planted them and had even missed their tall stalks growing up in the middle of other flowers, but there they were, just days after thinking about it along that very spot. There is so much more to explore in this beautiful relationship and I am full in, just like the bees.  I am ready to fully enter into relationship with plants and the land, as I had already done with bees.

So many beautiful moments and medicines come from working with gentle hands with the land.  So many more beautiful moments to share with the plants and pollinators and other animals who walk and crawl on this land I call home.  I am so grateful that I have entered into relationship with all of the beeings I share space with at DragonFly Hill.