in clover: watching for fairies

Last summer, on a whim, I put together a small fairy garden.  I used an old english stone trough, pilfered from my antique shop, as the base.  The fantasy garden was ostensibly for Little c.  She was delighted by it and spent quite a bit of time near it, just looking.  And I will admit, I was so taken by my creation (and keeping it tidy...keeping it "right")  that I quietly discouraged "playing" with it.  I am not very proud of that but that is the truth.  This photo is of the fairy garden, last spring.

As the seasons changed, I neglected to winterize the little garden.  It survived, mostly intact, and I intended to put it all back to rights at the first sign of spring...that is, as soon as I had time.  c asked me about it several times but I had no time.  I made lots of promises to get the garden tip top and fairy ready asap, but "not today."  

Then one evening, I wandered outside with a glass of wine.  My intention is always the same....to sit and enjoy.  I have attempted to design our humble garden for this very purpose...there are comfortable chairs scattered about with tables nearby for a book or a mug of coffee, umbrellas for shade and flowers for enjoyment.  As winter becomes spring and I long for the garden, what I envision is always the same....me, settling in with a hot mug of coffee early in the morning, or with a cool glass of wine as the sun sets, simply enjoying it all.  There is no busy-ness in my vision (and no bugs, either.)

But truthfully, my sitting usually lasts less than five minutes.   Inevitably,  I scan the garden and, rather than seeing all that there is to enjoy, I begin to notice all the things that need doing and fixing...there are weeds to pull, shrubs to trim, pots to water, flowers to dehead and the list goes on.  And, usually within a very few minutes, I am up and moving....my uncle calls it my "Granny gene."  He says I come by it honestly.  I think, like all things, there is both a blessing and a curse in my granny gene. 

This particular evening, after only a sip or two of wine,  my gaze landed on the fairy garden and waves of guilt immediately washed over me....I should have made it more of a priority to "fix" the tiny vignette, as I had promised c.  And then I noticed something....the fairy garden was decidedly more pink and green than I remembered.  Upon closer inspection, this is what I found: 

c had transformed the fairy garden with leaves and small bits of evergreen, azalea blossoms and even one purple flower she gathered from a clump of chives.  I remembered how amazed she was last summer, when I revealed the fairy garden surprise.  Now it was my turn to be surprised and enchanted!  

I was most taken with the fairy sized "umbrellas" she had created by perching upside down azalea blossoms on small twigs,  strategically anchored in the rock hard ground.   I am sure this took a lot of effort on her part.

Honestly, what fairy could resist such a sweet resting spot?

It only took a few moments for my delight to give way to dismay.  I felt very guilty that c had felt she must take it upon herself to rescue the garden.  After all,  she will only be a little girl for a short time... who knows how long this time will last....will this spring be the last when a few bits of broken brick and pottery shards evoke such delight in her?   

But, as I sat with all those "bad mommy" thoughts and allowed the guilt to simply pass through me, eventually I had a different thought. 

What if there is more to this story than simply the guilt and remorse of a harried mother, neglecting to fulfill a promise?   If I've learned anything from the practice of spiritual direction, I've learned that there is always something more.

Could there also have been a gift to c in this? 

She loves to express her creativity...she writes and draws and decorates and invents games and makes up funny songs and loves to take photographs and I do my best to encourage all of that....but I must admit, I tend to hold on to some things....like home decor and garden design!  In those matters, we often butt heads.  I am sure, had I made the time to "fix" the fairy garden, I would have taken charge and perhaps (more than likely) even rejected c's ideas.  

As completely unconscious as my stepping back was, still...space was created for little c to act on her own creative impulses.  She was so proud and I was truly delighted by what she designed.  And in the end, with my need for correctness out of the way, the fairy garden became something far more meaningful than looking picture perfect...far, far more sacred!  The garden is still a lovely place for fairies but, more importantly, it is a place for a little girl to express herself.... a canvas that invites, encourages, and nurtures imagination and creativity.  A place that invites an encounter with the Divine through creative expression. 

Last year, c spent hours sitting and watching the garden...certain that if she waited long enough a fairy would appear:

Now, I am the one who sits and watches the fairy garden...hoping to catch a glimpse of gossamer wings or a sprinkling of glittering dust in this place,  now of our shared creation...feeling connected TO my daughter...feeling connected to God THROUGH my daughter.  

I do not mean that my distracted behavior toward my daughter is excused and I certainly don't mean that it was "God's plan"...there are lessons for me here about distraction and priorities and, at least for a few days, I know I will be more present to her.  But there is always more.  The story is never only about our failures.  That is what the practice of spiritual direction is about.

The Sacred is moving in EVERY moment of our lives, not just the ones that make us feel good or proud of ourselves.  God is just as evident in our parenting failures as She is in our successes.   Many, like Father Richard Rohr, believe there is more spiritual growth potential in failure than in success. 

Working with a spiritual director can help you notice and savor the Sacred in all areas of your life.  My guess is that many of you have never heard of spiritual direction and it might even sound a bit odd to you.  It  sure did to me!  The first time someone, a minister, said to me, "Why don't you investigate spiritual direction?"  my immediate response was, "Spiritual direction?  What the hell is that??"

If you want to know more about what spiritual direction is or perhaps even more importantly, what it is not, send me a note.  I will be glad to share information with you.  If you are interested in engaging in this ancient practice, get in touch with me.  If I cannot work with you, I will happily help you find a trained and appropriate director.  

God is present in it all and God is longing to be known THROUGH it all....precious little girls and fairy dust and broken promises, azalea blossoms and twigs and rock hard soil...in granny genes, for better or worse....in stillness and busyness, in love and in imperfect parenting.  There is sacredness in and of it all. 

Namaste, 

Lisa 

in clover: a good foundation

As promised, part two!  Here's a long shot of the foundation bed post mulch.  

I think the birdbath, stones and succulent container planting look much nicer with the dark brown soil conditioner as an undercoat.  I use a product called Soil Conditioner.  It is an excellent soil amendment for the clay soil we have around here and it is a good looking mulch.  If you are in town, you can purchase it at Fayette Seed.  It's about $5 a bag.   

When I met this charming English lady, she was no longer in possession of whatever she originally held overhead.  She was in a bad marriage to an oversized birdbath top.  I encouraged them to go their separate ways!  Some years I have placed a small terracotta pot of annuals on her head but I've never really been quite satisfied.  Pre-mulch, here she is, sans head dress...





That's a tiny birdbath at the front of the bed...hmmm...worth a try.....





I'm not sure but I think I will leave her this way for a time.  I thought the arrangement seemed a little off balance so I added a marble urn borrowed from the front garden. I like threes...

This stone trough sits in the center of this shaded bed.  I usually fill it with impatiens but by the middle of summer, the impatiens grow so large they completely cover the trough.  This year I'd like to highlight the lovely and unusual French trough.  More succulents?  Not sure.  I think I will look for inspiration at the gardening center.  Those are tiny lettuce sprouts growing now.  The seeds came free in the mail and I planted them way too late, it's getting much too warm for lettuce but aren't they cute?

The marble urn needs something.  I considered impatiens but I decided that this year, I would like this bed to be completely green...no other color.  There is lots of color elsewhere in the garden.  The urn does not hold much soil, this bed does not get much light and I like to keep things as simple as possible so I used an asparagus fern for the urn, just to soften up my lady and carry the green color throughout. It should grow and fill out nicely.

I hope that no matter where you live, you find a little quiet time to go outside and plant a little something, somewhere.  It is so good for the soul! 

Peace,  Lisa

in clover: Suffering and Succulents

“Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.”  

Pema Chodron

Maybe you saw that quote on the in clover Facebook page.  I love Pema’s words .  I tend to think in a linear fashion but lately I’ve been trying to remember that all things, including my emotions, are more cyclical than linear.   Enlightened though we may become, we will never avoid suffering.   As Pema said, avoiding or eliminating suffering is not the point.  The point, I think, is to remember to look for and to find the healing in the suffering, as well as the joy.  I do believe that all of it, the weeping as well as the laughter, brings potential for healing….the happiness and the sorrow, the joy and the despair, the consolation and the desolation….it’s all sacred.   

The past few weeks I have found myself in a bit of a downer. I thought about telling you I was feeling blue but blue isn’t really the word for it…it’s deeper than that.  I’ve been fighting to remind myself that there is healing here in the dark places…I’ve done my best to hold that knowledge in a tight embrace and to stay present to my feelings.  

Today I had a long “to do” list…my top priority was to buy groceries.  But I felt really, really bad.  Odds were I would return home from the grocery with carton of Twinkies and a case of liquor.  I didn’t want to eat my way into oblivion nor drink my way there and I don’t take anti-depressants anymore…the best thing I knew to do was to take myself out in the sunshine to dig in the dirt.  So I drove past the grocery store on my way to the gardening center.

Recently I saw photos of a beautiful container arrangement of succulents in a rustic, stone-like container. I have never planted succulents (frankly, I thought they were ugly) but for some reason, I seemed to have found a new appreciation for them.  And maybe, I thought, if we have a drought like last year they would have a better chance of survival.   I filed the image away under “someday” cross referenced with “maybe.”

In my garden I have a small, round stone trough I purchased in France.  I was in Europe on a buying trip.  I had crossed the channel from England to Normandy overnight on a large ferry. 

I had a private sleeping compartment but was too excited to sleep so the French side of the channel found me bleary eyed and in need of some strong French café.  Once properly fortified, my friend Graham and I set out to conquer the Norman countryside in his van.   At our very first stop, I spotted two of these small stone troughs just outside the door of the brocante.   Stone troughs are pretty common but not small round ones.  I knew I wanted them as soon as I saw them. “Graham!”  I hissed under my breath, “Find out how much!”  Following a rapid exchange with the shop keeper (in French), the deal was struck.  As we placed our export sticker on the troughs, the shop keeper said something else in French.  

Now, I took high school french but I didn’t retain much of it, and I really depended on Graham to translate for me, especially numbers.  But with each visit, I found I could understand a little more.  This time my brain locked in on “pour les poulets.”   Graham turned to me in order to translate but I shushed him.   With great pleasure, I shouted, “It’s FOR THE CHICKENS, right?”   I assumed this little trough had been used for chicken feed but I found out later it was a waterer “pour les poulets.” 

I thought about using it to water my own hens but it’s really quite heavy and fairly impractical for that use.  Several years ago I asked Michael to drill a drainage hole in the bottom and since that time it’s kept company with two small staddle stones by little c’s playhouse. 

 This year I decided to move it to a sunny, hot part of the garden that needs a little somethin’ somethin’. 

In honor of the troughs heritage,  I thought some Hen and Chicks would be good (get it?) along with other succulents.

I don’t know much about succulents.  I tried to choose a pleasing variety. I thought I had too many plants but actually, I think I need at least two more.  I took photos of each and made a numbered list of the names so that I can research them a little more.  I removed the soil left in the trough from last year and mixed it 50-50 with compost (my own).  

Angelina Stonecrop

Kalanchoe hybrid - Beharti

Plush plant

Kalanchoe "Frosty Pink"

Hens ' n chicks - Pacific Blue Ice

Echeveria multicaulis

This part of my garden washes out if we have a hard rain.  I quit planting here and just put down a nice mulch but now I’m a little tired of the mulch washing away.  Nothing has done very well here so maybe this trough of succulents will be just the ticket.  It’s not going to float away, that’s for sure.  We planted new grass seed this year and plenty fell in the planting bed.  I used a vintage English gooseneck trow to take up the grass sprouts. 

I then put down Concern brand pre-emergent.  This is made from corn gluten and is not bad for the environment.  Two years I switched from using Preen brand to Concern. 

When I have time this weekend I will put down some new mulch and I think this will look really nice. 

I could have waited to show it to you until it was “perfect” but that’s not really what I want in clover to be about.  Nothing is perfect, everything is a process. Some things work, some things don’t.  It would be easy to show you only the happy times…only the successes….only the perfection but I think we have too much of that particular illusion in our world already.  In clover, we’ll share the beauty of things falling apart as well as coming together.  Let’s leave ourselves a little room, just like Pema said.