Positives to Pruning
There’s nothing like a fall (next week!) new moon to make me want to tackle my to-do lists and get down to business. There’s a crispness in the air and I’m feeling inspired for setting new intentions and clearing out some space. How ‘bout you?
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Our vegetable garden hasn’t done very well this year.
This is our third year of planting and I’m new to this type of growing.
The flowers in our yard are doing fantastic! But our produce production has been quite small. A few snap peas, a pepper, a handful of tomatoes, but that’s about it.
Something’s been eating our kale and for a long while we didn’t think we’d even get any tomatoes. The plants themselves were growing huge and tall, but no fruit! My husband finally took the shears to them mid/late-summer and pruned out a bunch of the bottom and inside branches to lo and behold finally, a few days later, find some little tomato beginnings (we’re actually going to have BLT’s tomorrow night with the one big one we got!).
Oh hello there!
But overall, it’s been a little disappointing and we’ve decided to make some changes for next year.
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Kind of like how this year has been, yeah? Disappointment mixed in with the small blessings and big changes. As always, nature is cueing us on how to navigate these waters of living. Prune. Cut back. Make changes. Create space. Celebrate the harvest no matter how big or how small.
Just like how dead-heading fading flowers gives energy back into the plant to create new blooms, so too do we need to prune out that old stuff that’s not really life-giving anymore. Habits, thought patterns, emotions, ways of being…. what’s sucking your life force and energy??
Of course way easier said than done. It’s a lot quicker to pull out the shears for the plants than it is to do our own personal excavating, so proceeding with kindness, compassion, grace is always a good idea. Finding a support team of practitioners, friends, loved ones is another solid plan.
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For me, I think this pandemic has been a much needed reminder to prune, much like our garden has been this year. I easily continue to do things because that’s just how I’ve always done them, but this time has been an enforced yet important pause to reflect on what really is working and what’s not. What worked before and what is no longer needed right now because of the conditions we find ourselves in? How is my work being called to evolve and can I let go of any attachment to how my brain thinks it’s all supposed to look? I took a workshop several weeks ago now from Amy Kuretsky called “F*ck the Hustle: Doing Business Differently” and it was inspiring to be in similar space with other biz owners and creatives. Being on retreat last weekend (and doing my first in person breathwork OUTSIDE since March) brought more willingness and excitement to look outside the self-imposed and society-placed boxes. I’m not quite sure yet HOW I’ll be doing things differently, but I’m enjoying the process of living into those questions and answers, while also holding any grief that naturally comes along with changes and pivots.
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Letting go, creating space, pruning are all great activities for the waning moon, actually. Which we just moved through that phase at the beginning of the week. We are, however, moving into the fall season next week and that is PRIME TIME for releasing. So perhaps with yesterday’s new moon energy we are still swimming in, we can take a pause for a moment, to listen inward to that quiet voice of Knowing, and after some internal reflection, choose something we are ready to prune away. What’s ready to be shed? How are you being asked to unfold? I’m with you right along in it and grateful we can do it together. xo!