Tending Your Mind Like A Garden

Join CSC's Rachelle Cornelius and Brenton Harris for a dharma talk about the ways that tending a garden can be likened to self-care and self-awareness. From weeding and shadow work to trust and the harvest, our conversation meanders through mindful ways we can tend to our lives and our minds through garden-centered metaphors.

This talk illustrates the importance and benefits of ecotherapy and includes ways you can practice at home (even without a garden space).

Transcript

Let's talk about why gardening is a good metaphor for the mind and why garden work is inner work.

Yeah,

I mean there's I think a lot of good metaphors for the mind but it's spring right now and there's a lot of people out gardening and I think working with symbolism and our internal state is really helpful.

It can help bring some clarity to our experience in a way that's different than if we're just talking directly about fear,

For example.

If we associate our emotions and our thoughts and different aspects of our life with a symbol,

Sometimes those symbols can reflect things back to us that we don't even expect.

So we can actually learn more by using the metaphor and the garden is a rich metaphor to use.

Yeah,

It's almost like a dream.

It's like dreaming about a garden or dreaming about plants.

It's a metaphor that has meaning and some kind of lingering insight behind it if you just sit with it and that's why it's like being out there in the garden and whether it's like you're growing fruit or food or you're just,

You know,

You're growing flowers or tending the trees or whatever it is.

It's like it requires this kind of daily discipline,

This daily awareness,

This level of trust,

This level of commitment,

Right?

It's like it's all these things that's not just going out and you know mindlessly wandering around.

There has to be intentionality,

All these things with it.

Yeah,

I think too about like the power of a visual practice.

I say visual but I mean like in an experiential internal practice,

Right?

The more that we can bring detail to the inner garden and we're weeding or we're cultivating the soil or we're smelling a flower and we can actually cultivate that in our inner state,

In our mind garden,

That's more powerful for change.

Again,

It gets us,

It gets,

It kind of gets both sides of the brain,

Right?

It gets the left side of the,

You know,

Kind of analytical because we know that there's that metaphor there but it also gets the right side of the brain because we're dealing with dream,

Vision cultivation and yeah,

It just goes much deeper that way when we're working with both sides of the brain and using both creativity and symbolism and using sort of the rational,

Analytical part of the brain as well.

Totally,

But then also the body in a kind of different way,

Right?

It's like it's a more safe way to incorporate the somatic thing because when you're immersed in fear or trauma response or anger,

Those kind of knee-jerk reactions or familial kind of patterns,

It can either be scary to confront those things or it can be really challenging but it's like if I'm digging my hands in the dirt and pulling up weeds,

You know,

It's like there's some resistance there,

There's dirt under my fingernails and that kind of thing but it's a little easier for me to reach into,

You know,

Soft dirt and pull up weeds and realize like,

Oh,

This is my tendency to react when I'm in traffic or whatever it is and,

You know,

Visualize throwing those out and sometimes it is if I'm in the throes of traffic and trying to tell myself,

You know,

To call my reaction.

Absolutely.

And I think what's more too is that when I'm doing,

I mentioned this earlier,

Kind of the daily part of the tending your garden maintenance,

Then I remember that it's not just going to happen once.

I'm not just going to like neutralize a reaction or in one fell swoop like knock out decades of familial trauma with this one different choice like it's going to be a daily thing.

It doesn't matter how many times I pull up these little shoots of St.

Augustine grass every morning I come out and it's like what the hell,

You know,

And it's it feels like that inside too.

It's like how many times have we taken,

You know,

Three steps forward and then feel like we take two or four or five back.

Yeah,

I love that.

It's so true.

Yeah.

Our inner work is,

I was just writing something yesterday that healing,

Like a healing journey is the human condition.

It is a lifelong experience that we're choosing every day.

And as you're saying,

The garden is a good way to recognize that,

That it takes time.

It takes cultivation.

It takes awareness.

It takes,

You know,

Kind of like a devotional tending to it.

And the garden is a beautiful metaphor.

Most people like to hang out in the garden.

So,

You know,

It feels good to keep going back to it and working with these things that can be more challenging,

You know,

Thoughts and emotions are more challenging,

But it brings an element of levity and joy and appreciation and contentment,

Which is another layer that we need to bring to these parts of ourselves to be able to work with them effectively.

Totally.

Because it's not all just shadow work,

Right?

It's not all just weeding,

Right?

Tending the garden requires watering and it requires fertilizing and it requires pruning.

It requires all these,

Even nurturing love,

In other words.

It's not just the,

Because that's,

I,

I certainly get caught up in that and that,

That self-growth and transformation is often like the ways I need to be better.

And in many,

You know,

I'm the older I get,

The more that I'm in this work,

I'm realizing actually it's about loving and nurturing the parts of me that just want to flower and less about like focusing on the ways that,

You know,

Things are not right or not growing fast enough or whatever may happen because it's actually referenced.

It requires a lot of trust,

Trust that all of these things that we're doing are going to eventually produce fruit or pay off.

Yeah.

The seeds that you're planting,

You plant it in the darkness,

You plant it in the shadow.

You never know what's going to happen,

Right?

The shadow is rich medium for cultivation of growth of flowers,

Blossoming,

Whatever it is that you want to create in your life.

We have to recognize that the shadow and the birth of something light or flowers or fruit or vegetables or whatever,

Those work together.

We,

You know,

If,

If you,

If you put something out in the garden and it only has light,

It will die.

It will literally die,

You know?

So it's great to be able to recognize that.

The other thing that I really love about tending the garden too is inevitably when I garden,

I'm learning patience,

You know,

And there's a sweetness to the patience.

It's like,

Oh,

This little tendril,

It's coming.

It's going to come,

You know,

And then you just see the first shoot,

Right?

We don't,

We don't do that with ourselves.

You know,

It's like,

Oh,

I just had this little burst of progress.

It's amazing.

You know,

But if you see a little bit of basil in the garden coming up,

It's like one day older,

Like,

Oh my gosh,

Baby basil.

It's so amazing.

So we can also like,

You know,

Kind of extricate that,

That joy and that appreciation that we have for our garden for ourselves,

For our own inner work.

And that's really cool and really important.

Gosh,

What a,

Just what a mindset to cultivate and to have kind of as a baseline,

You know,

Just joy and appreciation.

It's not like this is a new concept.

Oh,

If I was more joyous and grateful all the time,

My life would be better.

But that's one of the ways that we can actually,

You know,

Viscerally immersively practice it.

It's like where,

Where in myself and my life and my mind are there little baby shoots just breaking ground that need a little extra nurturing.

But that's part of what,

You know,

Just being immersive in the natural world shows us is that not all things are going to be viable.

And then that's okay because they end up composting and nurturing the soil again.

So it's like,

We have to be,

You know,

When you plant a bunch of seeds,

You have to prune and give the strong ones a chance to survive.

So it's like,

We have to focus our energy on what makes sense now.

If I plant a bunch of fall crops,

You know,

In spring,

It's like,

It's not going to have the same effect and vice versa.

So that's,

It's again,

That trust,

Like,

Can I,

Can I lean into darkness until it's time to start leaning into light and,

You know,

Bring that balance there?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I love that piece around like not all things are going to be viable.

That's a really,

When we're doing,

You know,

Healing work,

When we're doing evolutionary growth work,

It's super important to remember that.

And I'm,

You know,

I have challenges with that all the time,

Right?

It's like,

Why isn't this working or,

You know,

Can get really frustrating.

And with the garden,

It's really clear to recognize,

I mean,

You can try to make everything in the garden work,

But you will be frustrated,

You know,

And,

And so over time,

It,

It kind of wears you down and teaches you to recognize,

Yeah.

Maybe it's looking at quote unquote failure in a different way.

You were talking about composting and it's like,

Oh,

It's not actually a failure.

You're,

There's a learning there,

Right?

There's a benefit there.

Yeah.

Important lesson as we move through these journeys.

Totally.

And sometimes the composting process is smelly.

Like it's stinky.

It's sometimes it's hard work,

But then sometimes it's also not at all.

You know,

Things don't always have to be rushed.

I mean,

I just,

I have a big compost heap for the first time I've been kind of sharing with you some about it.

And it's the compost heap alone could be this whole separate like topic and teaching and workshop and retreat,

You know,

Just because there's so much in it.

But yeah,

I continue to,

It just astounds me how the quote unquote waste that's around can so easily and so naturally be transformed into something that's so rich and usable and not just usable,

But like spectacularly beneficial for continuing the garden process,

You know?

And it's like,

What would it be like for,

I mean,

Not only me myself,

But humans in general to switch that mindset from just like this idea of dumping and wasting and getting rid of,

Right?

The aversion and getting out of that craving aversion kind of cycle and realizing that,

You know,

It's more of this whole kind of process.

There's balance there.

And that if we just kind of tune into the natural process,

We remember that.

And again,

It's kind of a garden thing.

It brings us back to our elemental roots.

We're digging into the earth.

We're watering the garden.

It's got the fire of the sun,

The air that's around that brings the freshest,

You know,

It's like that kind of returns us to those things that are outside of us.

It reminds us that we're all part of this,

This big cycle.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

It's good to be in flow with our own,

Our own natural nature.

Yeah.

Humans are nature and that's important.

And I like this,

This piece around learning,

Learning balance.

Yeah.

And that,

You know,

I think when people think about shadow work,

There's a lot of fear and it is often this idea of like,

Let's get rid of that.

That's a,

You know,

That's a bad part of you.

And it's not to say that shadow sometimes isn't painful or scary,

But the process isn't such that we're extricating it from ourselves.

I think we actually can't do that.

It's a part of ourselves.

It's grown into our nervous system.

It's grown into our lives.

And so this idea of composting it,

Alchemizing it,

Transmuting it into something that's beneficial for the things that we want to grow.

I think that's,

That's where the real process is.

And that's the love,

That's the compassion,

That's empathy to recognize.

There's nothing that we need to eradicate from our garden.

It,

It's all in service.

It's all in balance.

We just,

It's our work to figure out how does this compost and,

And you know,

What is this like going to deliver the nutrients for peas,

For example.

Right.

Like,

And again,

I'm using the metaphor,

But right.

Like if I'm facing fear,

Recognizing like,

What,

What does this serve?

What,

What part of my life,

What,

What aspect,

Relationship,

Work,

Health,

What,

What is it related to and what does it serve?

What,

How do we transform that into something that we can then move forward with?

And it'll come up again,

Just like a weed.

Here it comes again,

Because we're human and that's part of us.

There's this,

Well,

In the past people have called oil black gold,

But now if you're a permaculturist,

They call compost black gold.

And it's an interesting,

You know,

There's some interesting history there,

But I kind of liked the idea of the modern version,

The permaculture version of black gold,

Which is to recognize that the darkness does have the light inside of it.

And it's just our job to recognize that it's there and to cultivate it in a way that turns it into gold.

And maybe that gold is,

You know,

Another flower,

Another plant,

I don't know,

Or maybe it's more,

More composting.

Yeah,

I,

I appreciate the opportunity to,

To,

To kind of reflect and ask myself like in any moment,

Especially the moments where things feel challenging,

Things feel tight,

Where I feel triggered or inflamed that I have an opportunity to compost something.

And if I'm just choosing to throw it in the trash and kind of avoid that experience,

You know,

It's like,

It really is just kind of like,

You know,

Tossing something in the garbage instead of choosing to kind of break it down and integrate it and,

You know,

Let it become soil again.

And it's not to say that we have to always be digging around in the,

In the compost and digging up seeds to see if they're sprouting,

Because we all know that that doesn't work,

But that,

You know,

We can,

We can be gentle with ourselves in our contemplation.

And just because we're taking baby steps doesn't mean that we're not,

You know,

Making giant leaps of progress,

Kind of like,

You know,

Nature over winter,

It takes a while for energy to store and then build.

And then all of a sudden,

Within a matter of days,

It's like,

Everything's in the green and flowers.

And I have to remind myself of that.

It's like,

Whether it's growing new seeds,

Or it's breaking down compost,

Like,

Sometimes I just have to stick with myself long enough for things to hit that exponential change level.

Because it seems like there's plateaus for a long time,

During some of this doing this inner growth and this work and this kind of undoing familial lineages of trauma,

You know,

All the things that come into spiritual awareness.

And it's helpful to see that the metaphor is true for both the breaking down process and the growth process.

It's really the same thing.

It's the same patience.

It's the same trust.

It's the same love and compassion.

It's all the same,

The same cycles.

There's no light without darkness,

You know?

Yeah.

Yeah,

There's this gestational kind of experience about it.

And as you were talking,

What sort of emerged for me in that is this idea about working,

You know,

Tending the inner garden.

And if you're lucky enough to be able to tend an outer garden,

That can be another layer to reinforce this experience as well.

But it puts us in accord with,

It puts us in the rhythm of the earth.

And I think that's also really important.

We've kind of been touching on that here.

You know,

We can get into this cycle in modern society where it's like an expectation,

Quick,

Quick,

Quick.

And we can't force something to grow.

It has to take its own time.

And we keep coming back to that again and again and again.

And it puts us,

It humbles us.

And it puts us in the time frame of the earth's rhythms.

And I think that's really valuable in terms of like decreasing our stress even.

Yeah,

And almost kind of like opening,

There's a kind of falling into that rhythm,

Decreases the stress.

So there's a natural opening in us.

And we need that natural opening for things to continue to evolve,

Right?

Like a plant is not going to grow in super compacted soil,

For example.

Right?

So yeah,

That like,

Oh,

Leaning back into the rhythm of the earth allows for the growth to happen.

Mm hmm.

I think that might be one of my favorite aspects of just ecotherapy in general,

Is the way that it slows me down to the pace of the planet.

And it's not to say that,

Again,

That the planet is slow.

You know,

We're hurtling through space at millions of miles an hour or whatever it is.

I'm not a physicist.

But,

You know,

There is this,

This natural kind of balance and flow with the planet itself.

And I think the more that we sink into that,

It's like,

That's one of the greatest benefits we can have,

Just from,

You know,

Being outside in general,

Even just being outside for five minutes every day,

There's enough of,

You know,

A noticeable change that occurs over time,

You can watch that we watch that with the moon's phases,

We watch it with the seasons,

But then you get to have your fingers in the dirt.

And you get to experience watering and nurturing and pruning and caring for plants themselves,

It reminds us that we have a lot more in common than we think.

So I say all the time,

We grow like trees,

But we expect,

You know,

Ourselves to grow like supernova,

You know,

Stars that are exploding into this grandiose depth,

You know,

It's like,

Okay,

Maybe bro,

But chill out.

I'm more like this oak tree over here that's been slowly moving toward the light,

You know,

And that way too.

Yeah,

Yeah,

I love that.

So let's see questions that kind of help people translate and maybe kind of practice with this.

If somebody doesn't have access to a space to garden,

What would you suggest as maybe a simple way that they can practice some of this stuff?

Oh,

You mean like an external practice?

Yeah,

That would help kind of then inspire the internal practice.

Yeah,

Great.

I mean,

You know,

Growing an herb garden inside your house,

A container garden inside your house is a big,

You know,

Kind of trend right now.

I think that that's great.

If you can have access,

You know,

It's just like right at your fingertips in your kitchen window or,

You know,

Probably even grow under fluorescent lights if it needs to.

So that would be the thing.

And sometimes in ecotherapy practices,

You can also,

You know,

Kind of at some time go out and wander around in a park or something like that and just gather some items that remind you of the earth and remind you of your connection with nature.

And that can,

And you can kind of keep a little basket of them or something and reflect on them as well.

That's another way that that can happen.

Do you have any ideas?

Anything else?

I do want to say,

I really,

I love the nature keepsakes idea.

And I have,

I mean,

Little bits of nature from all over the country because I love that practice of just listening to what calls.

But I also love the,

Or the practice of seeing the material that's there and gatherable as the seasons change.

And so even,

I mean,

For the first time,

You know,

In my life,

I've really had a garden space,

At least in my adult life,

I have a garden space now,

But for decades before that,

I didn't.

And so one of my favorite ways to just kind of tap into those natural rhythms was just to go to the same outdoor places consistently over time.

And so I love being able to like,

There was this,

We used to live in Dallas,

Like in Dallas and Dallas is a huge concrete jungle.

And there was this little,

Very gross man-made lake,

You know,

With tires and shopping carts and stuff,

But also with these beautiful pelicans that would come to roost,

You know,

Like once a year.

But getting,

I have pictures of this little dock going out facing the water from all four seasons.

And they looked so dramatically different.

I mean,

Covered in ice and snow from this random ice storm in the winter,

And then this deep,

You know,

Crimson in the fall and bright green in the spring.

And watching that shift is such a beautiful thing because it forces me to notice the small changes that happen that would have been beneath my radar if I hadn't been outside taking a walk in the same place for the 20th time,

You know,

This summer,

Whatever it is.

So it's like,

Yeah,

Reminding me that I don't necessarily,

Even though I think there are a few experiences that teach us like taking a seed and turning it into a whole plant,

Do you?

I think that's the closest thing to real magic that I've ever experienced.

But yeah,

Being in the world long enough and consistently enough to watch the way that the world changes without us.

And realizing and remembering that that is inherently part of our makeup.

It is in our,

The,

The substance that is our potties.

What were you were saying?

I think it's important.

It reminds me of another ecotherapy practice,

Which is sit spot.

It's called sit spots where you go out into nature,

Someplace that you love and you return ideally daily,

But again and again and again,

And you're picking up the changes that happen and kind of like water that wears away a rock sitting with the earth day after day after day,

It kind of wears on us.

It wears its rhythms into us and there's deep learning there.

Wow.

Yeah.

Gosh,

I've had experiences like that.

Just Joanna Macy like experiences,

You know,

Like zooming way,

Way out in space and time and just kind of exploring the magnitude of that,

The magnitude of history,

The magnitude of human,

The amount of humans that have incarnated and then,

You know,

Reincarnated or left or become non-physical energy and part of this planet.

I mean,

It's,

It's so much to take in.

The magnitude of life is so much to take in.

But again,

It's like,

If we're not doing those practices,

Then we're not kind of taking our place in the ecosystem of the earth.

We're not recognizing ourselves as a vital component of the global community that's very much affecting the global ecosystem.

So the more that we're kind of recognizing,

Oh,

We play an important part in all this,

Not in this egoic,

Look at me,

I'm mastering nature,

But in the,

Oh,

I should probably pay attention to the way that I'm influencing everything around me kind of way.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

I think it's really important for us to recognize that we're a part to not just know it,

But to know it in our experience,

In our heart,

In our bodies.

That would change the world,

Really.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow.

And all of a sudden,

It's almost like we're full circle,

Because it's like,

When we just step out into the gardening or planting or just working with nature in general,

We have those immersive somatic experiences.

They become,

You know,

We take it out of this just bouncing around in my brain and intellectualizing things,

And they become lived and real.

Yeah.

We need a lot more of that right now.

Yeah,

We do.

Yeah.