45 :: 90 {Solstice to Equinox}

The coming Earth Dog year is calling me to put my hands in the soil. To grow things, to make things, to be present in this manifest world. Today, as the sun warmed me, I started the backyard garden project that has been our dream for a long time.

When we bought our house, this yard was lawn from house to creek. We had a vision of food growing surrounded by drought-resistant plants and flowers.

We purposely let the weeds take it over. It was intentionally wild until I became unintentionally overgrown and seemingly intractable. Over the years, weeds became brambles with roots entwined in the plastic netting from the sod and the gopher wire that the previous owners has put in.

Last year, we tended. We cut back the brambles, cleared it all away. Painstakingly, removed the gopher wire and plastic netting. Turned the soil that was packed down, hard, dry. We put down compostable landscape paper and mulch. Our sycamore tree added a blanket of leaf mulch.

As the days warmed this week, we saw the fruits of our labor...a ready canvas, a yard ready for new ideas, new projects, new growth. I looked underneath the mulch and found moist, dark, fertile soil.

It has me thinking about the mental, emotional, physical, spiritual work of these past few years. Tending my parts, cleaning out the old ways of thinking, choosing what stays and what goes, what is in alignment with my best self.

Leaving me with a ready canvas...a bring ready for new ideas, new projects, new growth!!