copyright Bela Johnson, published by Inner Tapestry, April/May 2003

And so long as you haven't experienced
This: to die and so to grow,
You are only a troubled guest
On the dark earth.
-Goethe

As each of us readies ourselves for the delight of spring gardening, we prepare for a rich encounter with Mother Earth, once again. After a particularly cold and snowy winter, this kind of encounter seems especially inviting and nourishing. In addition to our normal routine of soil preparation, compost generation, and our eagerness at beginning our gardens anew, we might likewise be considering our relationship to the soil, to Mother Earth herself. How can deepening this relationship improve our gardening and enrich our souls and soils at the same time? How does the bond we create with the earth facilitate our own healing, as well as helping to heal the relationship between humans and the planet on which we depend for sustenance?

In certain Eastern schools of thought and certainly in Western astrology, it is commonly held that the elements of earth and water are YIN, or feminine, while air and fire are YANG, or masculine. When we sink our hands into the soil, we make contact with the energy of the earth, with our own feminine, intuitive, contemplative energies. Without even thinking (an air/YANG function), we might spontaneously engage a deep, kinesthetic KNOWING about how best to care for soil, seeds and plants to optimize their health and vigor. At the same time, we might experience a flash of insight about our own health. Perhaps we have been contemplating using an organic seed starting mix for the first time, instead of planting our seeds in commercial potting soil. Suddenly and without premeditation, it occurs to us that something we have been ingesting is likewise failing to optimally nourish our own body. This can certainly be an addictive substance such as tobacco or alcohol, but it can also be an allergen which would not necessarily affect another individual in the same way (dairy, wheat or soy products, for example).

Our bodies KNOW, in a way that the earth KNOWS. We are made of the same substance, we are infused with the same consciousness, though in humans, this consciousness requires intentional awakening. The kind of knowing we speak of here often does not stand up to rational logic, and yet, when acted upon, can provide a powerful catalyst for healing. In her book WOMEN WHO RUN WITH THE WOLVES, Clarissa Pinkola Estes offers, "I'm always taken by how deeply women like to dig in the earth. They plant bulbs for the spring. They poke blackened fingers into mucky soil, transplanting sharp-smelling tomato plants. I think they are digging down to the two-million-year-old-woman. They are looking for her toes and her paws. They want her for a present to themselves, for with her they feel of a piece and at peace."

Estes is, of course, referring to the Wild Woman, the earthy feminine in all of us, regardless of gender. The feminine has been disregarded mightily in our industrialized society, and we now find ourselves seriously questioning the earth's capacity to support our burgeoning human numbers. Our bodies and the body of Mother Earth are composed of the same elemental substances. When we stick our hands in the soil, we affirm our connection to that which sustains us (matter/MATER/Mother Earth). Marion Woodman posits that body and soul are as One. "We were given the body for a reason. If you keep trying to escape from your body, you'll kill it. That's true of our earth too. If you bury it under a garbage heap, it'll die."

As we continue drawing parallels between the life of the soil and our own lives, we begin to hold a greater consciousness about the relationship between Mother Earth and our own bodies. We begin to feel more accepting of our bodies just as they are, more connected as human beings to something meaningful and rich. We feel a greater kinship to the physical universe. And along with these feelings, we kinesthetically understand our responsibility to reciprocate, to care for the planet which sustains us. As we honor and respect the earth, we naturally honor and respect what is feminine within. This is very important, as it includes the very forces of life and death, themselves. And this brings us back to the Goethe quote at the beginning of this article. Gardening brings us into relationship with the primal forces of life and death, both physically and symbolically. We nourish life from a seed, watch it grow, thrive, spring full of color and vitality, and then wither and die. This is the natural order of things, of all life. And yet we as a society have such a hard time letting go. Resistance to releasing contaminates our treatment of death and dying, particularly as it relates to our elders. As the end of a human life draws near, we continue trying to sustain, to encourage consumption of something, anything, to keep the life force from waning. Yet as any gardener knows, fertilizing a dying plant is a fruitless effort. With sadness, we mourn the passing of the beautiful flowers, harvest our seeds, and relegate the plant to compost. We resign ourselves to the seasons and prepare for change.

To draw on the symbolic nature of life and death from our experience as gardeners is to ingest a living metaphor, a word derived from the Greek "to transform." We honor life's emergence along with life's passing. We rejoice in our gardening, we learn through an experiential component to embrace change whether our personalities like it or not. The habits which we once felt compelled toward can now be put lovingly to rest. Relationships can transform, change form, and be released to a new life, together or apart. Our cravings, strivings, and other consumerist conditionings can be mitigated through a gentle process of communion with Nature. For She can teach us at every turn, if we can only open ourselves to her lessons, her cycles. For we, too, are part and parcel of this living, breathing planet, of the intricate web of existence.