dk photographic

I'm not much of a gardener.  In fact, I'd swear that I see plants cower in fear at the thought of coming home with me.  My mom, on the other hand, has a green thumb....  a forest green thumb.  She loves to garden.  Before she moved in, my "flower" beds were really just mulch beds with an occasional Hosta plant.  (It seems I can manage to keep those alive).

My front walkway was hardly a welcoming path to our door.  But since my mom moved in, things are changing.  Slowly but surely, there are flowers & hanging baskets showing up.  It's definitely looking more colorful and homey.

I'm very appreciative of all my mom is doing so the other night, I went outside to help.  The task?  Pulling weeds.  It seems that when you neglect something for a while, all this ugly stuff shows up.  Those poor purples flowers are drowning in the grassy weeds.

 And this spot?  Jeez!!!  It looks like it's in the deep woods but it's only 4 feet from my front door!  UGLY!!!  And.... it has the added treasure of all kinds of poison ivy in it.  Yeah!  Can't wait to weed that!  I promise.  I'll be incredibly careful when working in here.  I am not a fan of the P-I-Vee!

Anyway...  As I was sitting in the mulch picking weed after tedious weed, deep thoughts started swirling around in my head.  Gardens are one of the greatest metaphors for life.  My garden has two things:  beautiful plants and ugly weeds.

These awful weeds are the things in life I'd rather avoid.  I can think of a lot of things in life that are far more entertaining than pulling weeds.  Can;t you?  And...  If I don't pull those darn things out by the root, they're sure to grow back and bother me again.  Weeds are an awful lot like life's problems.  Ever notice that when you don't resolve a problem, that issue is sure to show up again in your life?  Again...  And again...  And again... Until you finally fix it.  To truly be a healthy person, you have to resolve your issues.  You have to pull the ugly weed---root and all!  At least that's what you have to do if you truly want to eliminate it.  Of course, you can drown it in RoundUp but nothing nice will grow there if you do that.

I have learned this from personal experience.  I was...  and probably still am...  an expert at avoiding conflict.  I don't like to fight.  Odds are good that I'll retreat rather than fight.  I have avoided & retreated from the "weeds" and guess what I have?  Larger, uglier, harder to pull weeds.  It's taking a lot more effort to take care of these weeds now.  Their roots are pretty firmly planted and it's going to take a lot of strength, love and patience to get to the beautiful garden that I know is there.

I'm working on my garden both physically and metaphorically.  I'm giving the beautiful parts the attention and love they deserve.  I'm watering, fertilizing and protecting the beautiful flowers of my life and hopefully...  by pulling the weeds, I'll discover that my garden is bigger and more beautiful than I thought it could be.

Have a great day and happy gardening!