What the Garden Teaches Us About Letting Go.
One of the things I love most about co-creating and being aware of plants, is that they, and all of life in the garden often quietly mirrors our own lives. If we are willing to slow down enough. To observe and watch closely, it teaches us truths about growth, struggle, resilience… and sometimes about when it is time to let go.
I have always believed that nature will always quietly answer many of the questions we struggle with as human beings. The garden is rarely dramatic about its lessons. It simply shows us the truth over and over again.
This morning while in my garden, I was reminded of something simple that plants understand instinctively. That not every place is meant for us to stay.
Recently, I have been sitting with a personal situation that has reminded me of this truth. A place that has been a big part of my life for many years, has suddenly began to feel heavy and painful in ways I couldn’t quite explain. I felt a deep sadness in my body and found myself wondering why something that once nourished me has now left me feeling depleted and unsafe.
It has made me reflect on how often we stay in environments long after they stop supporting our growth, simply because they have always been a part of our story.
When we tend and love plants, whether they be for food or medicine, we learn over time that their growth is shaped by their environment. Soil, light, water, wind, and the unseen relationships beneath the ground all influence how a plant develops. A plant growing in poor soil does not flourish. But it also does not mean that the plant is flawed.
A plant surrounded by too many other plants, overgrown and smothered, or overwhelmed by thorns (I have tons of blackberry at my house!) is not weak for struggling, and in some cases it is engaged in a struggle for life itself. The plant is simply responding to the conditions around it. And sometimes, the most compassionate thing a gardener can do is to recognise when a plant is in an area that is harming it, and decide to take that plant away and move it somewhere else.
Except we don't have a gardener that will actually dig us up and physically move us.
We have to do that for ourselves. Sometimes we just have to dig ourselves up.
We have to give up on the fairy tale of how we would like things to be and accept how they actually are.
And once we accept the truth ..... we start to see how depleted the soil is, how the surrounding plants are competing for light, how the thorns are making us bleed. And at the same time, we may even feel tenderness, understanding and compassion for the thorns themselves, knowing that they grew that way to survive, that maybe, this is the only defense mechanism they know.
But...... you also realise that understanding the environment does not mean you must continue to stand in the thorns.
The body often recognises what the mind is still trying to understand. And that is why your heart felt so heavy for so long. And even though you yet didn't understand it... why you would find yourself crying, after standing in the thorns for too long. Your body already recognized that the soil was not good.
Oh but the plants...... they adapted, protected themselves, and instinctively moved towards what would sustain their life. Their roots reached for new water. Their leaves turned towards brighter light. Seeds traveled until they could find new ground where they could continue to grow strong and true.
Nature does not argue with reality.
It responds to it.
We, however, and I have done this many times in my life - often stay much longer than we should in environments that quietly wound us. We try to explain the soil, try to fix the climate, soften the thorns, walk through the brambles - all the while bleeding from the cuts and pricks, or maybe...... we convince ourselves the pain we feel is in our imagination.
But sometimes the quiet wisdom of the garden reminds us of something important. That recognising an unhealthy environment is not a failure. It is awareness. A plant that moves toward better soil by scattering its seeds far and wide, is not denouncing the soil that struggled to nourish it. It is simply following the same instinct that governs all living things - the instinct to survive and to grow.
And this brings us back to the beginning. To the truth. That sometimes we can not grow in poor soil. There is compassion in understanding and accepting why something is the way it is. But compassion does not require us to remain in the thorns.
The garden teaches us that we can hold understanding in our hearts while still choosing a different place to root ourselves. Sometimes the truth is not about changing and making the thorns more palatable. Sometimes it's simply learning when it is time to step away from them, and turn gently toward the light. To a space where we won't feel smothered and pricked until we bleed.
Perhaps this is one of the greatest lessons the plants offer us. They do not fight endlessly against conditions that prevent them from thriving. Instead, they follow the quiet intelligence of life itself. Reaching for light, seeking nourishing soil, and growing where they are able to flourish.
As herbalists and plant lovers, we spend so much time learning from the healing qualities of plants. But sometimes their deepest medicine is not in the tinctures or teas we prepare… it is in the way they live.
Love Kim
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