Taking my yoga practice outside to garden...

Did you get outside yesterday?  It was a SPECTACULAR specimen of Wisconsin weather and a great reminder about why I LOVE living here!  With a light breeze and the mist from the hose, the kids and I barely noticed it was in the eighties...and my eldest, who is off of school for the week because he has suspicious whooping cough symptoms, commented cheerfully, "All the other kids in my class have school today, but I get to be outside in the sunshine.  This is best part of my day."

We have been cooped up inside resting in jammies for the past few days, so I told them it was time to get out in the fresh air.  It feels so amazingly wonderful to be alive on days like yesterday--you sweat, your skin flushes, and you breathe deeply while you listen to the cardinals and robins singing and the wind blowing in the maple leaves overhead. 

This setting is what I imagine many times in my meditations...a perfect place of peace and calm...well, almost.  It was soon interupted by the kids screaming and fighting, squealing and laughing, dogs barking and running and bikers, buses and mopeds moving by...you know, normal day to day distractions.

When I continued to breathe and sink my hands into the earth to plant new vegetables and happy marigolds, these sounds melded quickly into the background and it was again relaxing and calming.  Are you like this?  Do you, too, need to be outside, connected to the Earth and its grounding richness? 

I think of yoga as I am working--how my hands are like my feet, when I am down on my knees--grounding me and connecting me to my source.  I love the solid strength I feel in my palms as I press down and I often arch my back into cat as I move down the row--just stretching and breathing so I don't get stiff or sore.

Here are some pictures of what I am doing--just cleaning up and using spaces around the buildings at the farm...remembering as I dig, the many times I did the same thing with my grandmother in the same spaces.


Digging and pulling, planting and watering, watching and waiting for things to bloom and flourish.  I channel her sweet spirit and devotion to this land and farm with everything I do lately and it makes me so wonderfully happy and content. 

I hope you are finding joy in these late spring/early summer days.  They are magical and precious and they pass too quickly if you don't make time to stop and savor them.