Gardening As An Act of Self Love

Once upon a time, every human on earth was engaged in growing or securing food. Continued life depended on it.

Every human on earth knew the direct value of food and exactly how much time and energy went into securing and preparing food, into ensuring survival.

Today we off-load most (sometimes all) of this responsibility onto someone else.

We live modern lives where food comes from a store, or gets delivered to our door. We exchange money for goods and services, and for our food. So our connection, our relationship to food, is filtered through the lens of money and whether we have enough or not.

Money has become the thing factoring most into our survival.

This tradeoff of depending on money instead of on food leaves us lost. We have lost the dynamic of being physically grounded, of being directly in touch with the very thing that sustains life on earth . . . our life on earth . . . we’ve lost connection to the soil and to our food.

Our shift in priorities has not caused a re-alignment of the natural order of things.

Food still comes from the soil. Plants still grow freely in the sunshine and rain (at least no one has figured out how to tax that yet).

Watering basil that is growing in a garden row — Photo by Pille-Riin Priske on Unsplash

Food still nourishes our bodies and is fundamental to our survival. But now our experience is filtered through the gauze of money . . . . at least if you let it be that way.

Growing food (gardening) is not a chore or a burden. Gardening is an act of self love.

Gardening provides nutritious food to nurture your body.

Gardening lets you connect to the soil and to natural systems. You become immersed in nature when you garden.

Gardening gets you outside into the moving air and the sunshine.

Gardening is a form a meditation. It is a mindful practice. While your hands are busy, your mind is free.

A man picking tomatoes in the garden — Photo by Kamala Saraswathi on Unsplash

Gardening puts us in touch with the ground. We experience the ground. We become “grounded” in the garden.

Walking in nature provides one form of relief from modern life, but touching the ground as we garden, touching plants, experiencing the creation of food, is quite another.

Our human brains are still connected to the jungles and plains where we evolved. When we garden, we take back something we have lost in modern life. We take back some control over our own existence and survival by securing our own food. Gardening has the ability to nurture our minds while it feeds our bodies with energy captured straight from the sun itself.

Spring is stirring in the air. The season of self love is upon us.

Are you ready to start your garden?