Bone Mending~ As published in We' Moon 2017:  a multicultural journal, datebook, and calendar of women's art and writing

remember the day a friend asked me why I was wasting so much time tilling and digging and planting and weeding my garden when vegetables were so cheap in the grocery store, especially during the summer. I had to admit, it was a reasonable question that I didn’t really have an answer for. I just gardened unconsciously and never once wondered why I was doing it. It just seemed like something important like doing the dishes. That was all I could say, “I guess I like it.” But it made me think and, since then, I have asked myself the same question over and over until it has become a longstanding internal missive of mine. “Why I garden” has become what I like to call a life thesis that cycles through my day to day during the growing season as I plant rows and pull weeds. I have put this question to not only myself, but to the soil, the seeds, and the green beings with whom I engage in this activity. I don’t expect to ever really have a concrete “answer”, nor do I particularly want one, as I truly enjoy the rush of curiosity such a question incites and prefer to stay in the “asking” state indefinitely. This allows me the joy of contact with the infinite and magical depths of this sacred and ancient human activity with presence while staying open to the authentic responses of my own heart.