It’ll likely come as no surprise to you that I’ve been seeing a therapist to process the feelings I’m having about my child’s recent trauma and recovery. One of the assignments my therapist gave me this past week was to take ten minutes every day in the garden to sit and do nothing.
If you know me at all, you know that ‘do nothing’ is not a typical phrase in my vocabulary. I’m a do-er. Always have been. My body is rarely at rest. If I do happen to sit in the garden, my body may look relaxed, but my mind is racing - I notice everything that needs doing, I think about the work emails piling up in my inbox, I wonder about next week’s meal plan - basically anything to keep my mind busy. Of course, keeping the mind occupied with everyday ‘busyness’ means that it doesn’t have to deal with pesky emotions. Brilliant plan. Except that, of course, I do need to deal with those pesky emotions.
I decided that I can create a ten minute period in between letting the chickens out and taking Tom to BART. I have a cushy outdoor chair and a chunky knitted throw to keep me warm on chilly mornings. So I’ve been sitting there, trying to calm my mind and do nothing. If a thought comes in, I tell myself just to think about it later. I take deep breaths and I watch the sun rise and start to shine through the leaves.
Did you ever see a show called “Sunrise Earth?” When the kids were little, we used to put it on every morning while we were eating breakfast, getting dressed, etc. Each episode showed, over the course of 30 minutes, a sunrise somewhere on earth. It was slow, it was silent (except for nature sounds), and it was beautiful.
What I realized this past week is that I have my own personal sunrise earth right outside my back door.
We’ve had a bird feeder hanging on the chicken coop for years, and it’s been a constant source of pleasure for us to see who’s visiting or living in our yard. Because of the feeder, and our water fountain, birds know that they’ll have a regular supply of food and drink here, and so we tend to have a great variety of visitors. Watching the morning activity is basically just pure joy. The trees are full of birds; there’s birds on the feeder and below the feeder; there’s birds on the fountain and birds on the twinkly-light wires. And the conversation! Chattering, calling, singing - the sky is full of music.
Since it’s hard for me to do absolutely nothing, I have been opening the ‘Merlin’ app on my phone and setting it to record the birdsong. Over the course of ten minutes, it ‘hears’ about 15 different birds. Every morning there’s the regular customers: finches, titmice, chickadees, sparrows, crows, jays, doves, and woodpeckers. But some mornings the app will record a cedar waxwing, or a western bluebird, or a warbler, or a vireo. This is very exciting!
In this way, I am able to practice mindfulness (‘bird’-fulness!) without letting other thoughts intrude into my head. It’s a tool to get me to the place my therapist was aiming for - a place where my body and mind are both calm and relaxed, so that I can let go of some of the anxiety, worry, grief and fear that I’ve been experiencing since we’ve returned home from Georgia. It’s yet another way my garden is providing for me; it’s giving me a place to learn a new skill, one that will have positive repercussions for the rest of my life.