Life and love are messy.
As a Capricorn and a #4 Life Path in Numerology, I find myself trying to create order in the messiness of life. But the truth I have come to believe is that the mess itself is beautiful.
I used to despise the mess. I didn’t like looking or feeling messy; I certainly didn’t want others to think I was messy.
Yet, I was messy.
I am still messy.
Likely, I will always be some aspect of messy.
I used to judge that as a bad thing. Now, I know that it just is. And that there is beauty in it.
As an avid gardener, I spend a lot of time out in nature. My emotions are unmistakably present when I am meandering around my garden. It is the grounded, safe space where whatever I’m feeling can be felt fully. In the garden, I am deeply embodied in the present moment.
In 2008, my Dad died and the loss really shook my world. Loss became the filter through which I viewed life before I applied any other emotion. It felt like many of the things I was SURE were TRUE, didn’t feel true anymore.
To say that everything looked and felt different with Dad gone was an understatement. I will spare you further details other than to say that it was Ridiculously Messy.
His death was a catalyst for me to embark upon a deep journey of self-discovery. This heart opening coincided with becoming a grandmother, retiring from a stressful career while becoming a small business owner. It was my version of life in the fast lane.
Too much of too much and laced with a lot of big love along with a lot of big loss. A lot of beauty and a lot of big messes. It became overwhelming on so many levels. I had to stop this wheel of chaos and slow down.
My garden, at the time, was total chaos. I hadn’t taken the time to pull the weeds and sing to the plants with all that other stuff going on. My garden has long been my sanctuary. It is the place I could express myself in what I love to call The Beauty Way. It’s a way of working WITH the earth and nature, rather than trying to control or manipulate it.
My Garden had died, too. Her temporary raised beds were in ruins, waiting to be removed. Some stray vibrant volunteer petunias, cilantro and tomatoes surprised us and lent some beauty to the mess.
We removed the deteriorating beds and built new ones of stone. Permanent. A better foundation.
Death continues with several other family members, friends and colleagues having passed. Death also visited as important relationships unraveled; the loss in my heart needed to be felt.
Walking in the Garden became the way I could slow down and let myself FEEL. As death does, it cleared my calendar. People I was sharing my love with in big ways weren’t available physically for me to love. I needed someone, something to love.
Feeling my heart break while working in the garden was healing. The heart break seemed less daunting when looking at a beautiful flower, the spacious sky and the lushnes all around me. Tending to the herbs and veggies and flowers and communing with the bees and the hummingbirds was an outlet for my love to be expressed, and the garden thrived! So did I!
Slowing down inspired me to breathe deeper. And as I breathed more deeply, I could feel into the belief that loss was the bringer of new life. When I brought my loss to the garden, she seemed to understand how I felt.
I felt her knowing when I witnessed 5 straggly albeit stunning sunflower plants reaching for the sun in late summer. They’re an example of beauty in the face of loss. You see, they were amongst a fifty-foot row of sunflowers that were planted. The rest were eaten by the deer, pulled by squirrels or succumbed to the weather.
As we near the Winter Solstice, I’ve readied the garden beds for winter and the sunflowers are long gone. I’ve learned that some of my creations are for beauty, some of them are for function and some are for fuel! And that applies, whether my creation is a relationship I’m nurturing, a plant I am growing or a Sound Bath I am playing.
Some portion of life is just going to be messy; and it is unpredictable which facets will be messy and when. To me, life is a spiral walk of tending to messy gardens. We meander the path, the terrain changes along the way and the unknown or unwanted feels messy.
We tend to the mess and sail along for a while and something else that feels messy presents itself. We learn to lean into that…. And so on.
The mess is where the beauty is buried! The mess might be a challenging relationship with a loved one, a lack of support or resources, an incurable illness, an auto accident… So many things…
While knowing loss will always be met in my Garden, I sink into this wintery hibernation period, nurturing and loving the seeds of Infinite Possibility within me that wish to bloom in the spring. As spring beckons with the increasing light each day, I hope you’ll meander the garden path with me in the spirit of openness and knowing that however deeply we feel, Mother Nature holds us.
Until next time, I’m Compassionately Yours,
