DOGKISSES A Personal Blog about Life, Health and Healing, Nature, Love, and Dogs.

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Another Awesome Green Healing!

I always imagined that a horticulture therapy class would be fun and healing and I was right! I love the class.  I’m also in-love with a lizard!  Who would have thought that my springtime heartstrings would be drawn in by such a creature.

He (or she) lives in a small Cabbage patch, along with some Brussel sprouts and Rainbow Chard.  I’m not sure about the gender.  Perhaps Deb, from DorkeyDeb.com can tell me, but for now, I’ll refer to little lizard as a male.  I think he has a mate or a sibling, because the first time he appeared, another one was following him about.

Gardening has always captured my full attention.  Time passes easily and way too fast for me when I’m working with plants and dirt.  I’ve found myself in gardens all day many times in my life.

I haven’t been able to do more than have a few potted plants in several years, due to muscle and joint pain.  It’s too hard to bend over.  Fatigue slowly took my stamina and my time in the garden lessened with each passing year.  I later moved to the woods and enjoy what I am able to grow in pots, but it isn’t the same as working with a garden in the ground.

One garden I grew was such a part of me that I grieved for the best of a year after I had to leave it behind.  I dreamed of it for a long time.  I finally wrote the new tenant who moved to the house where my garden was.  I included a sketch, with a description of the flowers and which butterflies would be visiting.  I received two of the most wonderful long letters in return the next summer.  One was from the mother and the other from her six-year-old daughter.  They were wonderfully surprised when the garden bloomed and the little girl loved the butterflies as much as I did.  I stopped having the dreams after that.  My garden was loved.

The raised beds where I’m taking the horticulture therapy class are high enough that I don’t have to bend over too far and can even sit on the wooden frame.  Because of this, I am again altogether involved with the garden.  It’s a good thing the class ends at a specific time or I’d be there all day.

During class, I focus my attention on the task at hand and not too much thinking is going on.  I try to listen well when my classmates or the coordinator talks, because I learn so much, which is very cool.

There is so much I could say about each class, which is good, but a little tiring to my brain.  I’d really like to tell you all about what I’ve learned and have become aware of after only attending three classes, and maybe I will in time.

Having been taking photos too, I’m aware of a lot going on at once, and more than just my cute little lizard friend who turns from green to brown right before my eyes.  He’s cute and smart!

I notice a lot about myself.  Of course, I notice how good I feel while I’m there and after I leave.  I also notice how I try to fix things.  It seems I want to save the world.  Apparently, a part of me thinks I’m capable of this, I guess.  Why would I try if I didn’t think I could?

For my birthday last year, my mother and son brought me home a gift.  It was a miniature sculpture of a little girl, on a bicycle inside of a glass bulb.  It reads, “Given the right cape and a nice tiara, I could save the world!”  I can see now why they both thought it fitting for me.

A shovel got away with a young man during class yesterday and dirt went flying across the garden, landing directly on a female classmate.  We were preparing the bed for our tender young Bok Choy plants that we transplanted two weeks earlier.  The young man felt very badly and apologized.  The woman who was blasted with dirt jumped back in surprise and concern, as she wasn’t sure what had happened.  Then, she looked at her shoes and remarked about the dirt on them.

“They look like good gardening shoes,” I told her.  “I bet that dirt will come right off.”

I wanted to fix the situation.  I wanted to make him feel better and help her to let go of her worry over the dirt.  I also wanted her to know he was sorry.

As with the other classes, each time I have seen these particular traits in me.  They are heavy traits, and likely a part of what makes me sad and tired.

I hope the ‘Green Healing’ helps me to realize that I can only do so much.  I am not  responsible for the world.  I can’t make everything right.

Thank you for visiting Dogkisses’s blog!

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