A New Beauty...

I'm a happy girl when I'm mucking about in the garden.

Tending to all aspects of it always brings balance to my life and teaches me a great deal.

It is so freeing to slog around in old clothes, getting the dew of the morning all over you and the dirt of the earth worked into your hands.

It takes effort to maintain a garden, neglect will always show itself quickly and while you can have someone do it for you... I find a deeper blessing in actually being a part of the garden through not only enjoyment, but contribution and tender care as well.

This morning the colours were glorious as many of the plants are leaving this season of their life with a spectacular last showing of the best that they have to offer...

Some have messages to convey...

individual flowers are finding that they are blessed in their latter days more than their beginning;

some are already pointing to better days ahead by producing the buds of promise yet to come.

There is a tendency in life to want to hurry through the very passages that can teach us so much.

There are some plants in the garden that just quietly seem to begin to fade.
Each day they become less vibrant, less visually appealing, more likely to be quickly swept away so as not to mar the beauty of the rest of the garden.

But there is such wonderful Beauty here!... and they also have a message to convey.
In the vulnerability of their fading outward appearance
a new Beauty emerges...
it's one that speaks of going deeper than outward appearances,
it's a Beauty that bids us to look a little closer at the intricacy of the inner life that willingly and joyfully gave so much to the Beauty of the garden.
 A life spent in the service of not only contributing Beauty, but offering refreshment to those that would take the time and spend it in the midst of a garden.

With love,