Riotous Beauty and the Courage to Not Know

Listening to the garden, trusting the hazy path, and walking into June with curiosity.

A slightly soggier view of the garden border I refer to.

Welcome June and welcome you precious reader.

Last month I wrote some words that I chose to sit with in May. As we move into June, I’m curious to see if they’ve seeded.

The air in my studio space is warm and thick, the garden beckons. I lean in and move outside to a shady spot. Above me the leaves of a magnificent silver birch ripple in the breeze, casting dancing shadows on the zingy grass. To my left a climbing hydrangea has nearly engulfed the shed. Each limb holds an orb of frothy stamen still bearing a scattering of delicate white flowers. Foxgloves shoot up from the beds in the softest spectrum of pinky purples. It’s delightful. I allow my eye and mind to wander where it will. There’s such freedom and energy in that. This task feels light and easy.

The occasional bird bobs by with a curious eye. We take each other in. I notice the intricate details on its feathers. I don’t know its name but appreciate it’s company.

Bird song and wind distract my ears from the noise of passing traffic. 

Early summer, a time for casting off layers, for dancing with the warming breeze, of savouring fresh tastes. Of letting our bodies guide us.

I pause and appreciate my ability to notice what was beckoning and celebrate my willingness to follow. I marvel at the rich nourishment that’s afforded me.

I’m sitting in front of the ‘last resort bed’ where anything I wasn’t sure about elsewhere has been given a second chance. For years it looked rather random and somewhat neglected. But I kept on popping in something else that had been gifted or that had outgrown its’ pot.

Now, it’s vibrant and joyful and slightly riotous. Apart from four trees it’s totally unplanned yet brims with contrast and height and colour. Blue green flat leaves of a Hosta peek out behind a busy rosemary. White and purple alliums shoot like fireworks from a bank of silver white sparkly flowers and delicate quaking grass. Bursts of apricot from a still flowering quince. Spiky silver thistle and plate sized fig leaves. A pink elderflower blooms, its own blossom mingling with the soft buds of a new dawn rescued rose. A self-seeded Hollyhock is magnificently rooted and strong.

What a feast to behold.

Through the attention I’ve paid, the care I’ve given and the plants desire to thrive, I’ve co created a living space. That’s so encouraging to witness. 

And as I look at this riotous, unplanned beauty, I realise it mirrors the season we’re entering. Our girls are flying the nest, Chris is retiring from corporate consultancy and our house is going on the market.

We don’t know what’s next. Our vision is hazy.

When people ask what he’s planning to do, where we see ourselves going, doubts creep in. In this culture of life and business plans, it sounds foolish to voice – we don’t know. Reckless to not have a plan.  

Whenever uncertainty rises, I find myself returning to the words I chose for May.

…. allow Love – yours, God’s and others to protect you from the lies that dimmish you.

Amidst the uncertainty there are things we know.

One season ends another emerges. We’re making time and space to notice and nurture what’s growing. Choosing to walk with openness and curiosity. To welcome what blows in. We’re carefully transplanting yearnings that have outgrown their containers, giving them space to root and expand.

Sitting here this morning has quietened me enough to listen and voice some of the fears, anxieties and griefs that sit not far beneath our decisions. They’re bound to be there. Thank you garden for helping me notice and name this. Thank you garden for pulling me forward by encouraging me to continue listening for and yielding to Love. For reminding me that doing so grows something surprisingly, riotously, joyful.  

Planning, thinking and prep are all great and necessary, so too are hunches, intuition and improvisation. All of this reminds me that life is movement and risk, free and graced.

As the warmth of June reminds us, all flourishes as it reaches for the light.…. We’re embodied and need to embrace that too.  

There are many practices that help our minds and bodies work together. Walking is one of those. And there’s a long link between transitions and walking, Pilgrimage. Chris and I are setting out to walk part of the Austrian/ Swiss Camino later this month.

I recently learned that pilgrimage comes from the Latin peregrinus, stranger, and from pere and ager, meaning away from your land. To be a pilgrim is to step beyond what’s familiar. to be a foreigner in a place and to be open to the strangers you meet there.

We love that idea that this walk will take us away from our land, our comfort zone and open us up to the stranger.

Going on a pilgrimage is an idea/ longing we’ve toyed with for years, and we realised it would be a beautiful way to celebrate our 30^th wedding anniversary. I wonder who we will encounter, and what they’ll offer. Be they fellow pilgrims, hosts, landscapes or perhaps parts of ourselves we haven’t yet met.  

We’ve prepared as best we can and we’re choosing to travel lightly. We’ll carry the essentials and trust our bodies to show us their limits and perhaps pleasantly surprise us. We don’t know how far we’ll get, and strangely that, feels joyful. We want to be present to what is and follow the path step by step.     

Pilgrimage, like tending a garden, is an embodied practice. Each step claiming not knowing’s OK, more than ok, it’s fertile ground. Not always comfortable but alive with possibility, presence and beauty.

This June may you find embodied practices that enable you to celebrate all that is and all that’s yet to be. With gardeners everywhere may we know that anything we grow, no matter how planned, is an act of co creation and trust.  

As we move toward Midsummer,

may the growing light and warmth of June lighten and loosen us.

May we have curiosity and courage to follow what beckons.

And may we know love walking within and beside us.       

Go well.