The Spirituality of Autumn Gardening
On a Saturday a few weeks ago, I had a free day, and I chose to come to the Star Garden to assist in a call out given to all volunteers to come and “lay the beds to rest before the cold and snowy days are upon us”.
The task was simple, physical and contemplative. Pull up any plants left in a row, lay them on top to decompose over the winter, and then cover the whole row with a bed of leaves. Two tools for the work: hands (or a pitchfork) to pitch leaves and a wheelbarrow to put them in – these were the only tools needed to lay the beds to rest. How is it, I wondered, this gardening is so restful, easeful, joyous even?
I have had a garden most of my life wherever I’ve lived. Till gardening and regenerative gardening are very different ways of being and doing in the garden. One uses the blade in the soil, the other uses leaves and compost. Guess which one I prefer?
I had the latter till gardening most of my life – for working out my inner journey as well as my back yard gardens! As a single mom, I did not have the money to buy a rototiller (and I wouldn’t buy one if I did!), so I made do with renting or asking for machines from neighbors when the opportunity presented itself (which was rare). When no help was to be had, I let the weeds grow and the garden go, and I’d dig it up by spades and shovels in the spring. The weight of ‘things’ – the spade, shovel, machine – for the sake of easier and ‘better’ makes for heavy and lonely work. I loved my gardens, but I can’t say I loved gardening.
The light, slowing down of regenerative gardening, invites something wholly different. It invites community and contemplation both wholesome and rejuvenating. (our Star Garden has up to 40 volunteers – families with kids, and elders with experience participating in our regenerative food security garden). I’ve never experienced being so at home in a garden, whether working on my own or with others, and I’ve rarely seen so much beauty, diversity, and abundance as in this garden.
How did I ever lose the capacity for this physical and spiritual joy of working in the garden or yard? It really comes down to where I choose to spend my time. If I spend it for hours in front of a machine, a.k.a. computer, T.V., laptop, or the bigger machines for yard, garden or recreation, it all becomes overwhelming, makes me anxious, and exhausts me. Simple slowing down in nature, working at this new way of regenerative gardening teaches my spirit things about working in the wind and in the quiet, about letting go, laying down the old to rest, and giving my soul the gentle covering of leaves and moisture that turns last year’s decomposing plants into fresh new soil for the promise of new growth. There is hope and light here that lifts the soul and spirit.
St. Ignatius of Loyola so many years ago, while recovering in hospital from a shot in the leg as an officer in the Spanish civil war, had a profound spiritual experience that eventually led him to write the Spiritual Exercises. With nothing to do but lay in bed for months to heal, he requested romance novels to read. When those ran out, he was offered the Gospels and books on the lives of the saints. He slowly discovered through his experience of reading, how the novels evoked the thrill of a ride while reading that turned to a tiring kind of anxious let down shortly after. He also noted how spiritual reading of the lives of saints and the Gospels touched and stoked the fire of deeper desires for self-awareness, communing with God, others, creation and kept him buoyed with slow burning, inner joy and peace. Anxiety or peace? Tilling or leaves? Which will I choose?
By Lucie Leduc