When the Light is Just Right

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Without further ado, today’s pocket.

Every day, even on the busiest of days, I try to take a noticing walk through my garden. It is a way to care for my plants and myself.

This noticing time is not a time for me to tackle garden projects. There is not enough time for that. Rather, I simply notice and record what needs to happen later when I have more time or perhaps when it is less hot. I often jot some notes as I take my noticing walk.

I carry a watering can with me, full of rainwater, and I feed things that look thirsty. I often plant seeds and transplant seedlings, and I don’t always remember where and when. This noticing walk takes the pressure off. If something looks thirsty, I give it water.

It takes time to fill the watering can with rainwater from the barrel. I have to pause and be patient. It also takes time to water plants by hand, but this is part of the noticing. Paying attention to beauty and growth in the natural world sets my soul at ease.

In addition to my noticing walk, I try to sit in my garden every day. I read once that every garden needs a seat, and I have found this to be wise and true in my life. I love to sit on my back garden bench which is aptly placed where it gets sun in the morning and shade in the afternoon. On this bench, I read, nap and drink tea. Sometimes, I just sit and feel gratitude for the sanctuary I have created, for myself, for my family and for the many critters who live here all summer long. I love ladybugs, and they seem to love my garden.

I like to do yoga in my garden when I can. A good day starts with yoga in the garden when I can take a moment to breathe before the world can ask anything of me. These days, the world is asking a lot, so the breath work matters even more. Yoga offers me a chance to view my garden from different angles, and it reminds me to take in the sky and the birds above.

When the Light is Just Right, Mary Hutto Fruchter

It was after a yoga session that I took this photograph, which I’ve titled, “When the Light is Just Right.” On this particular day, Mateo, my nine-year-old foster son, who has now been living with us for two weeks, see more on this in last week’s post, came outside to look for me. He knows he will find me in the garden. He sat down and joined me on my yoga mat, and I invited him to move with me. “This is so hard,” he said.

“It gets easier,” I said, “if you do it every day.”

Mateo did some poses with me. It was soothing to hear him breathing beside me. Then, he sat on the bench in the back of the garden and waited for me to finish.

When I did, we walked back to the house, and that is when I realized how the light was illuminating everything, the lupine, the columbine, the poppies…Mateo and me. At the end of each yoga session, those who practice say Namaste Day, which means the light in me bows to the light in you. On this morning, Mateo and I were bowing to the light in each other and the light within the poppies.

California poppies reseed themselves easily, so they decorate all my garden beds, but their blooms are fast and fleeting. I took that photo just a few days ago, and as I look out on my garden this afternoon, all those blooms are gone. More poppies will bloom all summer long, but those particular blooms in that particular light, that was a gift for that morning alone, and I”m so glad Mateo and I were there together to receive it.

I am sharing a few photos below of some of my other garden noticings. I would love to continue this conversation in the comments. How does your garden grow? What are you noticing? Where do you find sanctuary?

Rudbeckia grown from seed, worth waiting two years for

So not dead

Lupines, the life of the garden party, Mary Hutto Fruchter