What healing land has to do with healing ourselves

A master gardener I am not.

When we bought our first house several years ago in Pennsylvania, I couldn’t figure it out - How to keep a lawn green. How to coax the hydrangeas to bloom. How to get those neat lines between the mulched garden beds and the grass.

My lawn was a bit patchy, the hydrangeas wilted and/or died, there were no neat lines…anywhere.

So, I decided to stop fighting with the lawn and focused on the vegetable and herb garden. That flourished.

Hmmm…but, why?

I planned where to put the vegetable garden and timed the amount of sunlight it would get. Eugene built a fence around some raised beds. I used compost and spread manure. I purchased organic tomatoes, zucchini, kale, and then added kitchen herbs - basil, dill, rosemary, parsley.

I went out and checked on the garden often, talked to the plants. At the time, I was pregnant with our now five year old Bodhi and my first vegetable patch grew as my belly did.

Here’s what I think was the real trick, though…I let it be wild.

I listened to a podcast with Mary Reynolds recently. She calls herself a reformed landscape designer, and I loved her when I found her five years ago…but this episode made me positively swoon. Mary shared that most gardens nowadays are an illustration of what we - as a culture - have done to the feminine. Oooohhh, I feel that in my soul.

Deep breath here:

We’ve demanded she look a certain way.
We’ve neglected what’s native in favor of what looks “pretty” to us, rather than what’s beneficial for the ecosystem.
We kill, till, weed, bag up, and drag away whatever isn’t pleasing or societally acceptable.
We prune and trim and scrupulously edge.
We try and keep our gardens tame.

Damn. That’s exhausting.

And also enlightening, isn’t it??

What woman hasn’t felt the need to conform? What individual in a feminine embodiment hasn’t been called out for being aggressive when she’s assertive, conceited when she sees her own beauty? What woman hasn’t deflected a compliment?

How many women have been told that they are crazy or dangerous or simply too much when making choices that step outside of the mainstream norm? Home births, high slits , strong voices, red lips, gap years, quitting high profile careers, grey hair, bonfires under full moons, two week silent retreats, new businesses, whatever.

The way we treat our lawns and gardens and the nature that surrounds us…that’s the way we’ve been taught to treat ourselves. It’s so unconscious, so embedded into the psyche…until it isn’t anymore.

Until we want to shout, ENOUGH, breaking free of the chains we’ve wrapped around ourselves, throwing our arms up to the sky, dancing in the pouring rain, being whoever we really are in every situation that we step into. The being that’s wild and chaotic and gentle and intuitive and creative and unbelievably loving. You get to be all of those things alongside being organized when you need to be or productive when you need to be, too.

In the last few years, I have read a lot about gardens - what Mary calls “restorative gardening” - and medicinal herbs. I’ve allowed myself to observe the feminine in her natural and wild habitats - forests, oceans, rivers, streams, meadows. I’ve watched the plants in my yard grow and die back again with the seasons (or from my own mistakes…of which there are many).

I crave a backyard and gardens that are wild and big and flowering, native grasses and shrubs and trees, towering tomato plants and twirling squash vines. Strawberries that peep out underneath lush green leaves. Chamomile that smiles with her white and gold flowers, lemon balm evoking the scent of summer. Dahlias and zinnias and Iceland poppies stretching their stems towards the sun.

Less mowing and grass seed and cursing the dandelions.

More wild. More free. More real.

What’s been an unexpected coincidence is that I’m practicing restorative gardening alongside writing the Afterglow Perinatal Yoga training manual. While it wasn’t intentional, this manual (perhaps the first book I’ve ever written) parallels what happens in our gardens and wild spaces. I’ve organized it into sections - SOIL, SEEDS, ROOTS, FRUITS and so on. It connects us with Mother Earth while learning how to care for the human mother.

There’s a call to re-learn and re-member how to garden, how to give nature back to herself. There’s a call to re-learn and re-member how to tend to our own bodies - supporting healthy cycles and fertility, nurturing pregnancy, surrendering during birth, and healing postpartum. Soil to seeds to roots to shoots to fruits.

This knowledge supports health for years to come, well into our elder years. Ayurveda says something like “the first 42 days postpartum will affect the next 42 years of your life.”

When we heal birth and motherhood, we heal whole societies.

When we heal land, we heal ourselves.

So, if you’re reading this far, I want to share something special:

The Afterglow Perinatal Yoga training is here and I’d like to invite you to join for fall 2023. The first training will be an all virtual program, starting in September 2023.

For my birthday month (June!), I’m offering an early bird rate of $300 off. Read more and register here. I’m also happy to speak over the phone or via Zoom if you have any questions.

With much love and many flower petals,

Leanne