During this 2021 Summer of Covid one of my self-care, emotional survival practices has been weeding. Sure, I weed my garden more or less every summer, but with more time at home immersed in Zoom calls and less time traveling, the weeds have been calling to me – “Take me, Take me. Clean me out!” Upon reflection, following are at least 4 things the weeds have been teaching me.
- Weeding is therapeutic: Much of my work in the social justice and spirituality realm is hard to quantify or see a noticeable difference. BUT, weeding is visible and practical. I can directly see the difference I’ve made. After an hour of pulling the unwelcome weeds cluttering my vegetable garden, I now see a clean space with healthy, brown
soil. I feel like I’ve accomplished something; made a difference. - Rain is my friend: As satisfying as pulling weeds can be, rain has a double purpose. If forces me to go inside and do those chores that I’ve been avoiding – plow through my email, plan Zoom meetings, vacuum and sweep. Rain also makes it easier to pull weeds the next day.
- It’s important to pull the whole weed including its root: When I don’t pull the weed out with its full root, it grows back stronger. Isn’t this a life lesson too? When I try to solve a relationship or political problem if I (or society) doesn’t get to the root of the problem (poverty, illness, lack of education) the problem reappears later and has often multiplied.
- Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish a weed from a good plant: As I was energetically pulling weeds out of my blackberry patch, I mistakenly cut off some branches that I thought were dead, but as I pulled them out, I realized that they were attached to some very healthy
Lemon sorrel
stems. I also found that some “weeds” that I had been happily pulling were actually yellow wood sorrel – a tangy, lemony flavored herb that can be used in salads or substituted for parsley.
(I learned this from a friend who had accompanied me on a prayer walk through a local park. She picked up a piece of sorrel and said, “Here, eat this.” I said, “Hey, I’ve got loads of these in my vegetable patch and I’ve been pulling them up as weeds.”
Isn’t this a lot like life? As we look at people who might be dirty or we don’t like, we want to weed them out of our space. What might look like a weed might be a gift in disguise.
What lessons has nature been teaching you these days? What emotional survival practices have helped you?
