Moving through the Flux
The weekend is lingering in my mind. It, I hope, will continue to be flashes of light and colour and smiling faces. Memories to cherish and hold. Memories that echo of a time had and when recalled to the fore front of my mind they will feel solid and true. After all isn’t that what some time away from everyday life should feel like. Our time away was for a few days in Wellington, where we saw friends, family, art and dinosaur bones. We ate well, slept long and walked far. It was a good break. A long overdue break perhaps and a reminder of times away before Covid came and disrupted patterns of regular holidays and so forth. It felt good to reestablish such things. I read this morning Alice Vincent’s newsletter Savour and she talked of change and the associated flux one sometimes experiences when it happens. Alice spoke of how when significant change occurs you think you should feel a lot but as you progress through the changes you are so busy navigating it, how you feel gets lost in it all. It is only when you have a break away, have time away, that you can see what is happening all around you and understand the mood. Away from the everyday you can see the steady good changes that you have been wishing are starting to form shape and happen. Of course, they look and feel different to how you imagined but they are good things, true things, even if they feel dizzying and confusing at the time. Sometimes we are just in it and sometimes we need a break away to see things more clearly. That I think is the purpose of a holiday. Clarity.
The main purpose of our trip aside for some down time together, was to spend time with family. Family which are a joyful branch of our tree made up of young branches unfurling with gumption and life. We met for lunch in the Wellington Botanical gardens and of course I took my camera. We headed there early to explore and get lost as my brother-in-law advised. This is easy to do in such a beautiful space of trees and paths. We meandered about following this path and that path and just generally enjoyed that feeling of seeing green trees, of leaves and of course flowers.
I seem when I travel to to have moments when I revert to a small child. I squealed with delight when we spied a kaka feeding, then flying. I desperately tried to capture it with my camera and as they flew away instead I just stopped and watched. Enjoy the moment I told myself. You don’t have to capture everything. Coloured feathers flapped past me and then I played eye spy with it as it danced amongst the branches of the tree, moving as parrots do with determination and character.
These gardens are a garden of trees but also sculpture as well. I loved the mirror like reflection of one which was tiled in a beautiful lapis like colour. A head was stuck in the sound scape sculpture to listen to the noises of the city. As we walked we had a view from high across the city. This meant we saw more than we did the day before when we climbed the surrounding hills. Cloud came in which meant the view was obscured. I think this is a constant in Wellington. Along with the wind, which appears and disappears with varying degrees.
We strolled and I snapped, learning as we do more about gardens and garden design. Ideas are snapped up and hopefully remembered for future projects yet to take form. We found beehives and then we found foraging bees on mass on Golden Rod and Kiss me over the Gate. Plants that were duly noted again for future garden space to plant on mass. Both plants are welcome end of summer early autumn foraging plant for bees.
The part of the garden which saw me quicken my step was the area devoted to trial beds. Here beds were designed to support and nurture nature and were a mass of Salvias, Zinnias and Echinacea. It was a vibrant mix of blues, pinks and whites which created the thing I love seeing the most in gardens, a sea of movement. Birds, butterflies and bees were all actively foraging in the flower beds. I naturally took photos and notes. I felt hearten by the attention the garden attracted with people stopping to admired it. I hope the garden was doing for them as it was doing for me and inspiring them to take home a seed of an idea. A thought perhaps about the natural world. Often these small steps lead to bigger things. That is why I write and share my garden, in the hopes that it encourages others to adopt and embrace gardening habits that support and nurture the world around us.
We have returned home from our travels refreshed momentarily before the thud of everyday life engulfs us. Bees need attending. There is washing to be done. Pups return home smelling of dirt and full of more energy. They crash out later once feed. Me, I feel more focused and I am sure if it wasn’t for the head cold that I picked up on my travels I would be doing more with this new found focus but for the moment it just sits still until I am well again. And then it will be time to keep building on the idea of a garden that encourages.