May 9, 2011

Weeds~

I love using the “garden” and “gardening” as a metaphor to describe our healing journey. I have done so in past blogs. I am not so keen, however, on “weeds” and “ weeding.” I may have mentioned this before, so please excuse me for repeating my distaste for weeding.

I just finished pulling a gazillion weeds (slight exaggeration) in the hot, late, afternoon sun. There is no easy way to weed. I tend to bend over from the waist, feeling the pull on my back, and the stiffening of my lower back muscles, definitely signaling a very bad back day tomorrow! I try sitting, but my arms do not reach very far and then you find yourself trying some obscene, undignified crab crawl to the next patch of weeds. Forget hands and knees, as my patch is all pine straw, apparently used to keep the weeds at bay (yah, right), and way too harsh on my poor tender knees and hands.

As I pulled, I found myself having one of my many internal dialogues that often lead to a new awareness, or another way of thinking about something.

You guessed it – I had a tiny epiphany about weeding~

I consciously tried to get into the present moment watching myself pulling these tiny oak tree shoots that seem to multiply faster than love bugs. This practice is referred to as “mindfulness”. As I pulled myself out of my “bellyaching” mode, and transitioned into a more aware, in-the-moment state of mind, I noticed that the pulling of weeds was kind of fun.

Yes, I wrote fun!

I was intrigued with how easily those little shoots came up, and delighted in how quickly I could pull those little buggers. In no time, I had completely weeded my fairly large patch and was quite pleased.

It struck me that our lives are littered with weeds; some little ones and some big ones. Some are easy to pull and others are rooted deeply and take hand trimmers and ruthlessness to extract. Nevertheless, the act of weeding makes room for what we are cultivating to bloom and manifest. The internal horizon is more pleasant without the weeds. It does take effort and persistence. But, once you are weeding diligently, it is effortless and the spaciousness created within is truly something to appreciate.

What are the “weeds” that need pulling for you? Take a moment, breathe deeply, and pull away!