Category: Word for Wednesday

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Harmony Through Chaos

Beauty is being in harmony with what you are. ~Peter Nivio Zarlenga

Life is messy.  At times it is downright chaotic.  It seems out of control, much like my garden.  I feel like it is so hard to please people.  I am forever mediating things at work or with family.  It is difficult being in the middle, and of course a middle child (that’s me) likes to mediate.  We want harmony with and for everyone.  Can’t we all just work it out.  But you know sometimes we want control especially when things feel out of control.  So how do we get control and not hurt others or tick them off?

I am learning to control my little world.  It is the only thing I really can control most of the time.  I finally was able to find time to clean and organize my office and the stress magically drained away.  It was a wonderful feeling.  The room and my life at work felt in harmony–

  1. agreement; accord; harmonious relations.
  2. a consistent, orderly, or pleasing arrangement of parts;congruity.
Then I came home and cleaned up all the seeds that had been strewn around from frantic planting on busy weekends.  I organized all my gardening papers, planted everything  that had been growing from seed and cleaned up.  It was great feeling, once again, like so much had been accomplished until I looked out into the garden especially the back gardens.  Ugghh!  The weeds have created such chaos in the garden.  It is hard to see many of the plants and flowers.  How did it get away from me again.  And as soon as I saw the chaos, I could not see anything else.  I lost that sense of  harmony.  What to do…how do I achieve that sense of balance again where there is order?
As I looked out at my meadow this weekend, it looked so peaceful and had such harmony of texture and color even with the weeds; even though to others it appeared chaotic, just a jumble of plants.  Looking at the way Mother Nature creates order with plants has shown me that what appears as chaos is in reality harmony; that pleasing arrangement of parts.  The lovely groupings of the blue lupines mixed in with white daisies just takes my breathe away.
And I remember that order does not have to mean neat piles and hospital corners (my mom was a nurse and we learned how to make a neat and orderly bed at an early age with hospital corners).  Even when people look at the jumble of piles in my spaces they think it is unorganized.  But my life, my garden and my spaces that seem out of harmony or messy, are in reality what I like to call, “a creative mess”.  I have my own sense of order.  Out of all the chaos I find my balance.  I can create harmony from the discord as I focus on one thing at a time.  Like weeding one area at a time.  Cleaning one space at a time.  It feels more tranquil knowing I will get to each in its own time.  Taking time to really look at what I am doing, where I am going.
And sometimes those very neat tidy piles can create more discord for me because they are not who I am.  My piles are never neat…never have been and never will be.  I live a harmonious life knowing my piles are a bit messy and skewed.  It is my comfort level.  Recently I have been trying to create harmony in my garden by making it more hospitable for wildlife.  Adding more native plants, removing invasive plants, going chemical free.  And all this has created a wonderful balance where the robins feel safe to nest in our front tree again.  More butterflies are visiting.  Birds are constantly in the garden with us raising their young, finding food.  It is this sense of harmony with the ecosystem that has brought peace to me in my jumble of weeds.  Knowing I will get to many of those weeds, but also knowing some are being used as shelter or a hiding place or even a home makes me realize harmony may not come in neat orderly piles but through the little or big messes that come our way through life.  We find our way through them striking the balance we need to find peace of mind.
I am linking in with Donna@Garden Walk, Garden Talk for her Word For Wednesday (W4W) meme.  The word this month was harmony.  I am a bit late with my post.  So stop over and check out all the wonderful bloggers and their take on harmony!

Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left. ~Aldo Leopold

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My blog was acting weird and wouldn’t let me post labels to pictures so here are the images you are seeing:

1.  Siberian iris about to bloom

2.  Maple seeds strewn about

3.  Late blooming parrot tulip with chives in bloom and lots of horsetail weeds

4.  A current picture of the meadow with amazing lupines

5.  A hosta at sunrise covered in dew

6.  Native hardy geranium

7.  One of the many water lilies exploding into bloom in the pond

8.  Native viburnum blooming like crazy

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Don’t forget that June 1st marks the next installment of Seasonal Celebrations/Garden Lessons Learned.  Click the link to learn more.  Beth@PlantPostings will be wrapping up this past season with lessons we have learned in our gardens, and I will be setting the stage for next season’s celebrations (summer up N and Winter down S of the equator).  What do you love to do in the this upcoming season?  What holidays or rituals make it a wonderful season for you?  How does your garden grow and what favorite plants will be blooming?  I hope you will be joining us.  Just create a post and link in with both or one of us between June 1 and the 20th, and on the 20th we will reveal those lessons and celebrations.

 

 

Marie@Aim For Change: Musings of a 50+ y/o Triathlete nominated for this wonderful award.  Marie is my husband’s cousin and an amazing woman.  The award is for those blogs who have fewer than 200 followers.  And even though she knew I had more (not many more mind you) she still wanted to recognize my blog.  Didn’t I tell you she was amazing.  What an honor.  Thank you Marie!!

 

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Next up on the blog:  June promises to be busy with lots growing in the flower and veg gardens.  There will be a Journal post next Monday and more Simply the Best as well as another Garden Book review.

I will be linking in with Michelle@Rambling Woods for her Nature Notes meme.  It is a great way to see what is happening in nature around the world every Wednesday.

As always, I’ll be joining Tootsie Time’s Fertilizer Friday.

I hope you will join me for my posts, every other Tuesday, at Beautiful Wildlife Garden.  I had to trim back my time blogging so I am back to every other Tuesday.

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