Lessons from the Garden [ about beginnings ]

Taking care of a garden is, in many ways, like taking care of your mind. I first came across that idea through Clarissa Pinkola Estés and her book Women Who Run With the Wolves, and ever since, every time I find myself gardening — and thinking — I notice the same thing: there’s a parallel between working with plants and Earth and learning some of life’s lessons.

As we know, spring is the true beginning of the year — when things start to awaken and move. But before something begins, there always has to be a stage zero. A kind of tabula rasa, pure potential, that potent stillness found in nature and the wild.

In gardening, that looks like those quiet days when winter still lingers. Everything is still, unmoving, with only remnants of the last cycle — traces of a bloom long gone.

And yet, that is exactly when creation begins.

Not in the light, but in the dark.

Creation always starts from nothing.

Even literally — seeds begin in the darkness of the soil. And by the time they break into the light, so much has already happened.

I know I’m not the first person to think this way.

We’ve all heard the saying, “the day you plant the seed is not the day you harvest.” But every time I witness that process, I’m reminded of it’s universality.

So what my garden teaches me, this year again, is this: things begin quietly, softly, but with intention. You have to be willing to work in the dark, without a promise of success, but with a quiet knowing — or better yet, acting as if it’s already unfolding. Because it is already unfolding. Even if you can’t see it yet.

What you do in the dark shapes what will grow in the light.

And that, I think, applies not just to gardens — but to life, business, and every goal worth nurturing.

Image sources: (1) DeathToStock (2) Nowness