A Lesson in Trust

This is a beautiful reflection from a good family friend that ran in the Washington Post recently. She has quite a lesson to share.

A September Lesson to Trust the Universe

Washington Post, Monday, August 31, 2009

With September upon us, something beautiful to greet the month.

My garden never looks better than it does in September. Maybe it's the tilt of the earth creating longer shadows and shorter days that gives it new depth and contrast -- matured colors becoming deeper and stronger. Maybe it's the months of exhausting growth that relaxes into a mellow peacefulness -- the garden now content with butterflies hop-scotching around its flowers.

In my garden, persistent perennials, aromatic herbs and eager annuals grow in a village of colored diversity -- their blossoms bursting throughout the summer in scattered sequence, like fireflies in the dark. Until now, I believed the beauty of the September garden was a result of my persistent summer nurturing: carefully arranging roots with space to grow and putting stakes in the ground to support wobbly stems.

All summer I care for my plants the way the owner of our local garden center tends to stray kittens -- feeding, sheltering and helping them to find just the right home to grow. If a petunia looks peaked, I dig it up and try it next to the basil. If the sage is too soggy, it gets moved next to the sun-loving daisies. More often than not, my transplanted patients sigh, and, for a short time, slump with limp leaves. For the most part, they are able to establish roots again and flourish; those that can't will wither and retreat to the soil to sprout again another day.

Sometimes, when the garden is just the right blend of textures, hues and heights, I pull out the shovel and disrupt the peace. Spreading the joy is what I tell myself as I dig up a couple of contented cone flowers and move them to another spot. I can sense their impatience -- much like my children who used to roll their eyes in protest when I fussed over them too much. Roots cling tightly to the earth as I yank and pull, falling backward from the force of their stubbornness. These are the plants that simply develop new roots, get on with life and thrive.

There is a whole universe in my garden. Things are born and die. There's conflict: Vines that want to hug the daisies to death, squirrels that want to eat the blossoms off the begonias, blue jays that push the sparrows out of the way at the feeder. But, most of all, there is harmony and interdependence -- bees work dutifully among the blooms to pollinate the flowers; worms tunnel below ground supplying aeration and nutrients; tomatoes bear fruit for sustenance. And now, for the first time, I've figured out why my garden looks the best in September. It's because I've stopped fretting over it by then. While I'm off looking for golden mums and orange pumpkins, my garden is allowed to "just be." It's alone with itself -- autumn activity bustles elsewhere. It inhales a collective breath of gratitude and releases it toward the heavens. And now, in the September of my own life, through the crisp clarity of autumn and the faith of a flower, I've come to know the universe will also take care of me, if I just let myself be.

-- Jane Donaldson, Alexandria