Nature Gives

 

What is it about nature that compels us to paint, write poetry, to capture its essence in memory? Is it perhaps a knowing; an intuitive connection that we sense driving us to seek its beauty?

 

I have the same emotion when I see a newborn baby animal or child. Its spirit is bright, sparkling, unjaded by the world.

 

Nature gives without taking. Fulfilling a void; a need the spirit inside each of us is yearning to fill.

I have walked and tended many gardens. Each moment experienced there has given my heart a memory that sings to my soul. A song so enchanting and inviting, I remember to visit, to stay connected…

 

By my grandmother’s house dress I have toddled. Curious in wonder of her excitement as each harvest comes to table. My life has been the same. Each year the “mothers” come back,

bringing their babies or daughters

as they are often called. I greet them wholeheartedly and praise God for the miracle of each new life reborn. A paradise I have created.

 

Although brief, fond memories lighten my heart as I reflect on my great grandmother carrying her teapot to her garden to fill with a most aromatic lemon-scented leaf. She spoke to me in words from her native Spain, as I yearned to understand the soft tones that were magic to my ears. Her kind and gentle hands would fill our delicate teacups as I patiently waited to sip the magic brew.

 

For years I didn’t know what was the memory I held as a small child drinking tea with my “Spanish grandma” (as my sisters and I so lovingly called her) until I grew my own garden…

Plants are my passion, and I often find myself writing at my desk as

my heart and mind lingers upon

the colors, textures and smells of the natural world outside my window. Stolen moments, briefly communing with my beautiful nature that longs to express while I write, create and connect with humanity.

 

When winter arrives I can breathe a sigh of relief, knowing the garden lies sleeping, awaiting for spring. Perhaps next year there will be more time for our communion and my soul will once again be renewed.