A collection of things

Little projects to bring joy

As I write a heavy cloud sits quietly in the distance, creating an air of stillness, hinting at something to come. I will go garden as I have done every day since last Friday before it rains. All I am doing is a general tidy up and finding the bones of the garden to start building on for another season. It is has felt so good to be moving and active in the garden. I’m resisting the urge to start planting things despite a new delivery of plants, earlier in the week. I know the soil is too cold. Little seedlings sit in the sun and seem to be doubling in size every time I look at them. It is a reminder that sun and warmth encourage growth, a thought I feel applies to anything that has the capacity to grow, plant or human.

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“I want to be a creator, and reinvent all the time. I believe that neither gardens nor people can stand still. Change is everything”

Helen Dillion by way of Gardening Women their stories from 1600 to the Present”

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As a gardener you make do with what ever the day presents and live in the moment of it all. Spring is the chance to start new projects after the hibernation of winter. The Imbolc Lioness who also writes here on substack shares the word imbolc, the awakening of spring, which is such a beautiful idea. I feel ideas and change stirring in me after months of quiet and slowly projects begin to form. Slowly, I hold on to that word tightly after years of rushing to make and do. Let’s give these ideas and projects some time to marinate and then breath before we jump too fast into action. I return to social media, a casual post here and there and then I find myself racing to create, slow down I tell myself and I try to. Old habits of urgency can often be hard to break, especially when the world around us encourages us to always be doing.

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My projects that I breath air into are small and delicate. One sees me stand in front of the camera in a blurred hidden way, telling myself that it is about the garden. I am shy wanting to be seen and then not. I tell myself it is to record the garden and this time in my life. Sometimes with the hurl and burl of everyday life to stop and take a photo gives it merit outside of domestic chores and work. I find old scrapbooks and remember the joy they gave me to create. Note books are purchased, words are collected and I make an artist date for August to scrapbook what July meant to me. I promise myself that I will just do this and nothing more, leaving it for a year to see what I create. I understand that taking time can come in many forms and that starting a project that may take over a year to create and doesn’t have a set format yet is just fine. It’s important to keep the curiosity up, it is my means to fight old age. And then I tentaively reach out and say to someone “I have an idea to share, can you help guide me” knowing that she will say yes and that it will be done in a slow and gently manner that suits both our gentle souls so well.

Spring is about beginnings. I hope that you are embracing this coming season and stepping your toe into something new.

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