THERAPEUTIC GARDENING

I en joy gardening.
While living in Virginia Beach my only choice was patio gardening in pots. Not the same as digging in the dirt, wiggling toes in the soil and breathing the garden scents but one works with what is given.
This year I have been given fertile New Hampshire soil. Soil that has just been waiting to grow. Add to that a spring and early summer with abundant rain. So, I garden.
Gardening has always been a mental exercise for me. Time to just play, time to push your body while the mind soothes. Today it was more. Two and one half weeks into recovery from surgery that removed my internal womb I am learning the art of therapeutic gardening. Recovering from major surgery is giving me the chance to know my body. I've learning to know when it needs to rest before the signal that rest is necessary. I'm listening to it's beats.
In this strange way by listening to the body's signals the mind is also heard clearer. Not as a separate entity that orders the body to respond to it's whims but as a part of the whole. When the mind/ body is working together there are no thoughts of what has happen or what will happen; all thinking is of now. The mind instead of living it's small ego world has become the caretaker. It is more alive than it has ever been feeling and sensing what the rest of the temple is living. The feel of the turned dirt, the coarseness of the weed pulled, the beauty in the new growth... therapeutic, very soulfully therapeutic... living in the now and growing stronger with ever breath.