The land is coming alive again. Everywhere a great unfurling, the season of resurrection. The naked branches of the oaks ruffle with new green. Pops of pink splatter the rose garden. The hens (and rooster, Zeus) are so busy that now we have enough eggs to give away. I just made a delicious frittata with feta, kale, and last summer’s sundried tomatoes.
Maybe like me your body is waking up too. With the growing light, I have more energy in the evenings. I feel my own sap rising in a kind of erotic entrainment with the nectar-drunk hummers and buzzing bees. The territorial squabbles between the red finch couples at the bird feeder have their own passionate intensity.
Diana Richardson, one of our Tantra goddess master teachers, recently wrote that the first step to sex is not arousal as we’ve been conditioned to believe but relaxation.
I know this to be true in my body. I curl up on the outdoor sofa in the morning with my black tea (with a touch of honey and milk), warmed by the gentle spring sun, and relish feeling free in a t-shirt instead of packed in a parka. The cool air carries a potpourri of pine, lilac, and daphne. This is soul food for my sensuality…nourishing…wholly disarming.
This is our fifth Spring on this land we call home. She and I seem to have come into a relationship phase where we can rest in an abiding familiarity. A precious feeling of mutual respect seems to flow between us. Beyond thoughts of thankfulness, I feel a visceral gratitude for the mighty miracle of being alive together. Here. Now. In communion. In Love.
She is a patient teacher as I confront ongoing layers of inherited conditioning around superiority and separation. Extracting. Taking. Demanding. Property. The inevitable failure of actions that come from my desire to dominate, control, or be clever. I wrestle with humility and humanness.
I’m also learning which efforts are fruitful and create reciprocity: mulching, composting, pruning, patience. I am cultivating more awe and less perfectionism. I am attuning to the elements, the directions, and the breathing, relational web of which I am a dependent and contributing part.
After several years in communion with this place, I am learning what grows, re-seeds, and comes back stronger. Instead of stubbornly trying to grow another delphinium and suffering her demise, I plant more foxglove and aster which are already thriving.
Instead of hoping that the voracious gophers won’t do what they do, again, I dig deep, wide holes and make hardwire baskets for the new plants. Maybe we can’t stop the predators but we can protect what we love, create boundaries, throw obstacles in their way.
Thank you Ma.
She generously offers me the weeds as my guru.
First there is the sheer expanse and proliferation of them. We’re talking acres here, not a little patio. Encountering the weeds feels a lot like my daily consumption of the news: there’s a prevailing sense that I’ll never make a dent with my meager efforts. That the task is just too big (hopeless, complex) for this one small woman (despite her tenacity and overachiever tendencies).
However, since turning away from the garden I love is simply not an option, I take a breath and focus my attention on the next single step. Just one small part of the garden. Yes it’s true, there are many, many more screaming in need but let me stay with this one, right here. Turns out, small, measurable progress has its own momentum, inspiration, gratification.
I also find humor in these truly arbitrary decisions about which growing things I deem superfluous or noxious, to be removed, from those which I want to encourage, nurture, and save from invasion.
That gives me pause as I breathe into the uneasy awareness that this micro reflects the macro, speaking of the news. That decisions about who is worthy to live and who is not are being made by ruthless and capricious “leaders” all over this planet. That I, too, am part of that human family.
I work my gloved fingers under the fanned out tentacles of a weed, grip tight around the base and pull the thing out. It is a special sort of gratification, a mild ecstasy, to feel the whole root release from the still-soft earth. The satisfaction of throwing it on the growing refuse heap.
On to the next one. Talk about a dopamine rush. Beats scrolling any day.
But of course it’s not always like that. There’s also the exhausted frustration of the fight with the ones that don’t give up so easily. The investment of sore muscle and sweat for a scrap of leaves in the hand. The utter futility of the effort, as if they’re mocking me, “Hey lady, thanks for the prune job. I’ll be coming back stronger.”
After just such a morning of meditation with my gurus, I take a quick shower and pick up my mom for the “No Kings” protest downtown. I’ve read an article in the New York Times that morning questioning whether the massive turn out makes a difference, changes anything in a measurable way. I’m asking myself this question.
What I do know is that it feels enlivening and empowering to stand on the street with my 85-year-old mother and thousands of others in my community, littles and elders, waving handmade signs, voicing our “Yes” for democracy, justice, and peace. It feels right to name the noxious, to say “No” to that which threatens beauty, abundance, equality and so much of what my feminine heart holds dear.
Audrey Hepburn said, “To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.”
Maybe you don’t have a passion for gardening but you surely have dirt under your fingernails with all that you do to grow your belief in tomorrow. All the ways you contribute to what you love and want to protect. Not to mention all the weeding I know you do in your own heart and mind.
Thank you, sister. I see you, Shakti Woman.
It’s so important to remember that you are not alone in the work you do, whether seen or unseen. It registers in a myriad of ways that we cannot fathom. We are the lovers, mothers, leaders, and gardeners growing a good tomorrow even when the task feels utterly overwhelming or sometimes futile.
Trust the season you find yourself in. Wear your sunhat, drink water, and know when to rest. Nourish your sensual self with the beauty and erotic that pulses everywhere. This is the nectar that will fuel your power, passion, and vitality, your Shakti.
With so much love,
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I’m Lisa Schrader and I coach high achieving, spiritual women who are done being driven by pressure and are ready to be powered by pleasure. Curious about what it would be like to work 1:1 with me as your Shakti Coach? Book an exploratory session with me here and let’s talk about it.
