The Sacred Art of Intuitive Tending: The Gardener and the Garden
In the rhythm of seasons and cycles, I've been contemplating what it means to be both the gardener and the garden in our own lives. I'm considering how we are simultaneously the creator and the creation, the nurturer and the nurtured, the one who shapes, and the one being shaped.
Unfurling
Here’s a little poem I wrote in support of our theme this full moon.
In this season of tender unfurling,
I am the gardener and the garden—
tending to dreams planted in winter's quiet,
nourishing roots that anchor me to what matters.
Like the cherry blossoms that don't question their becoming,
I am learning to trust my own timing.
It's in the small moments I feel my soul stretch and bloom -
morning light on green leaves,
bird song signaling sunrise,
fingers deep in soil,
the fleet feet of time -
rolling ever onwards,
holding it all close,
just to let it all go.
Each tiny awakening,
a petal slowly opening.
We are all gardens in various stages of bloom,
growing precisely as we should,
at exactly the pace we need.
The Gardener's Role
To be the gardener of your own life means claiming agency. It means showing up with tools in hand, ready to:
Cultivate the soil - Create conditions conducive to growth through self-care, rest, nourishment, and habits that sustain rather than deplete.
Plant intentionally - Choose carefully what seeds of thought, relationship, and endeavor you plant in the precious soil of your life.
Weed consistently - Notice and gently remove what no longer serves—limiting beliefs, relationships that drain rather than nourish, commitments that have outlived their season.
Prune with purpose - Sometimes growth requires cutting back, saying no, creating boundaries, and focusing energy where it matters most.
Water faithfully - Nurture what matters through consistent attention, presence, and care—even when results aren't immediately visible.
The Garden's Wisdom
To be the garden means embracing receptivity and surrender. It means:
Honoring natural timing - Just as a garden can't be rushed, our own unfolding has its own inherent wisdom and pace. The rose doesn't criticize itself for not blooming in February.
Welcoming all weather - Growth requires not just sunshine but also rain, wind, and sometimes even the fallow periods of winter. Each condition brings its own gifts.
Accepting imperfection - A real garden isn't pristine—it's wild at the edges, has bare patches, and is home to both the planned and the unexpected. So too with our lives.
Celebrating diversity - A thriving garden contains many forms of life coexisting, just as our lives are richer when we embrace the varied aspects of ourselves.
Trusting the process - Beneath the surface, even when nothing seems to be happening, roots are strengthening, and life is preparing for its next expression.
The Practice of Being Both
How do we live this paradox daily? Here are some practices that help me:
Morning intentions - Begin each day by consciously choosing what you wish to cultivate.
Evening reflection - End with gentle acknowledgment of what bloomed today, what needs tending tomorrow.
Mindful pauses - Throughout the day, take moments to ask: "Am I being a harsh or loving gardener right now? What does this moment in my garden need?"
Seasonal rituals - Honor the natural transitions in your life with small ceremonies that mark endings and beginnings.
Community gardening - Share your growth wisdom with others and welcome their insights in return. No garden exists in isolation.
Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times
For thousands of years, humans have both cultivated their landscapes and been nurtured by them. This relationship was not one of domination but of reciprocity.
Our connection to the land forms a bridge between ancestors who understood nature's wisdom and descendants who will inherit our choices. The recent historical shift from kinship to exploitation has damaged both earth's living systems and our collective well-being. When we deny our reciprocal relationship with nature, we also lose something within ourselves.
Robin Wall Kimmerer, botanist and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, explores this worldview in her influential book "Braiding Sweetgrass."
She weaves together scientific knowledge with indigenous wisdom, showing how plants and other living beings offer us gifts and lessons, if only we remember how to listen. Kimmerer challenges us to acknowledge and celebrate our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world, suggesting that only by hearing the languages of other beings can we truly understand the generosity of the earth and learn to give our own gifts in return.
She explains, "we say that we know a thing when we know it not only with our physical senses, with our intellect, but also when we engage our intuitive ways of knowing—of emotional knowledge and spiritual knowledge." This intuitive dimension is essential to developing a reciprocal relationship with both nature and ourselves.
The Bridge Between Inner and Outer Gardens
Intuition serves as the bridge between gardener and garden. It is how we:
Listen Beyond Words:
Attune to the subtle communication of plants, animals, and landscapes
Recognize patterns and relationships that analytical thinking alone might miss
Feel rather than just observe the rhythms and needs of both natural ecosystems and our inner landscapes
Practice Quiet Observation and Non-Attachment:
Cultivate the ability to observe without immediately categorizing or judging
Engage fully with present-moment experiences "without judgment or distraction," allowing us to "open ourselves to the richness of our surroundings"
Notice how quickly we label experiences as good or bad, and practice simply witnessing without attachment
Let go of the need to control outcomes, both in nature and in our inner work
Create Space for Wisdom to Emerge:
Recognize that when we stop "trying to react to your experience, you can open up to it completely, resting in mindful presence"
Allow periods of silence and stillness where deeper knowing can surface
Practice patience—wisdom from both the land and our deeper selves rarely emerges on demand
Trust that meaningful patterns and insights will appear when we create the right conditions
When intuition guides our gardening, we begin to recognize patterns that might otherwise remain invisible. We might sense when a plant needs water before visible signs of wilting appear, or we might feel drawn to sit beneath a particular tree exactly when our spirit needs its specific medicine. Similarly, we might intuitively know which parts of our inner landscape need attention before they manifest as more serious imbalances.
Indigenous traditions have always valued this intuitive knowledge as equal to, and complementary with, more analytical ways of knowing. In our modern context, reclaiming intuition helps us weave together what has been artificially separated: mind and heart, science and spirit, human and nature.
A Final Thought
Perhaps the greatest wisdom in being both gardener and garden is learning when to do and when to be. When to act and when to allow. When to shape and when to surrender.
In this balance lies not just growth, but grace—the understanding that we are always both working on ourselves and being worked upon by forces larger than us. The garden teaches the gardener as much as the gardener tends the garden.
What part of your garden needs tending today? And what part of you is ready to unfurl, precisely on its own perfect schedule?