My Garden Taught Me To Tend The Soil Of Life

I have said that one day I will write a book called Everything I Ever Needed to Know About Life Came Straight From My Garden, because truly, the garden is where I have come to understand so many important, profound, beautiful, and sometimes painful, lessons about life.

The garden is like a mini-planet, and for those of us who tend a garden, we are that mini-planet's creator and overseer. It is a honor and a responsibility to be able to put living plants into earth's soil and watch them grow. But as all good gardeners know, gardens take lots of work and daily maintenance. When a garden is well maintained, it's spectacular. But sometimes things can go wrong, and when they do, gardeners sometimes have to learn things the hard way. Plants can be so fragile.

Not enough or too much water, too much or not enough sun, bugs that kill, or damaging weather can put even the most seasoned of gardeners to the test. Often, some plants do too well, so well that they want to dominate all the other plants around them. When this happens, the gardener sometimes has to make tough choices, like removing part or sometimes all of the overbearing plant, essentially destroying something that is living and thriving in order to let others have a chance at life.

Being in the garden is where I do some of my best thinking, and every time I'm there, I can't help but see all the parallels between the garden and humans. So first, imagine yourself and your life as being its own garden. Look around you and what do you see?