I am a land to be made wild again
The landscape of this summer has been vastly different than summers in the past few years, both literally and figuratively. Our little family is facing some changes (unexpected at first, but beneficial and challenging in all the right ways), and in addition to that, I have been looking at my vocations as a Homeopath and Artist in entirely different ways.
Due to some other more consuming projects, we decided not to put in our big garden this year. In May especially, we were really missing the prospect of having vegetables while simultaneously thankful to not have all of the work required by tilling, weeding, mowing and maintaining when our minds and bodies were elsewhere.
As the months have passed, a fascinating thing has happened. I have watched the land reclaim herself.
The patch of land we usually maintain for a garden is about a quarter of an acre. Each year since we moved here in 2021, we have expanded it a little bit. Tilling more earth, planting different vegetables and herbs. The garden has always been a place of structure, organization, the grass between the rows neatly mowed and maintained. Though each year we battle a growing family of ground squirrels who have laid claim to our zucchini and squash, our harvests have always been abundant.
Over the past few months we have experienced an entirely different view. I learned that when grass grows tall, it sprouts lovely earthy lavender tufts. I watched the field grow wild with Dandelion, Hawkweed, Daisies, and Buttercups. Wild Roses sprung up in places I had never seen before. The Lupine seemed to shoot up overnight, enchanting our tiny valley with her unmistakable powdery-peppery essence. Now the Yarrow and Tansy and Goldenrod are everywhere. The thistle has gone to seed and resembles snowy patches lain gently over a parched golden ochre landscape. Tiny stars of purple Aster are now poking their sweet faces at the edges of the forest and that bright fuchsia fireweed is halfway to her tippy tops, here to remind me that summer is coming to an end.
As I have witnessed the wild flora in her process of reclamation, I grow increasingly conscious of a similar thread running directly into my own personal life.
Throughout this year I have mentioned that I decided to take a step back from my usual 8-12 art festival lineup to see what happens without those events controlling the entire flow of my summer. I knew that this refrain would free up space for creativity, help me slow myself down, and allow me to take better care of my physical and mental health. I also knew that I would inherently make less money without directly placing my my artwork in way of the public eye — the plus side of this being that I was also not spending gobs of money on festivals, frames, mat board, prints, and greeting cards plus all the materials needed to package them up. It was meant to be a year of scaling back and creating space.
What I did not expect were the things that came up within that space. I had envisioned a summer free and abundant with creativity. In a way, I have gotten both freedom and abundant space to make what I want. But what has crept in slowly in these untouched summer months has been an awareness of the not so healthy beliefs that had driven me to this place where I needed to take a massive step back from the public eye, from community, from being seen. I am observing myself in an entirely different light, remembering what brought me to Art and Homeopathy in the first place — because when you’re not blinded by the drive to produce and consume, I have found you get really clear on why you’re doing what you’re doing.
I see now how showing up as an identity or brand has attached me to labels that sure, sound important, but at the end of the day, before I am an artist or a homeopath or an essence maker, I am merely a soul moving through a human life. All I want is to paint the way nature makes me feel, I want to convey the miracle of synchronicities, the moments where I feel God or Gaia or Source or whatever you want to call it, moving through me and connecting me to every blade of grass or gust of wind, or bird floating on the air, or waterway that stills and rages and cycles. What I want is to witness the miracle of how the mere essence of a plant can help a person come home to her true self and find healing through that encounter.
When we remove the structures and the systems originally set in place to maintain and control our growth, or to insist upon growing only certain flora, we receive the opportunity to witness the natural phenomenon of re-wilding.
So as I have watched our little plot of land burst forth with a diversity I have never witnessed before just by leaving her be, I can see myself reclaimed by a more natural and authentic me. One who has not been tilled and trimmed and weeded. One who allows for new growth and even celebrates the death of the blooms that have run their life cycle and gone to seed.
None of this could have been achieved without space and surrender. None of these new species would have been revealed had I allowed the fear of letting go of control to take the reins again. I have only arrived here by observing my own resistance to letting the wild things grow in me and leaning into a great surrender. Trusting that the garden will always become exactly what she is meant to become.