Recentering

Spring is an awesome time of year, especially when I have the time to actually get into the garden. It's a very meditative practice for me. As annoying as the morning glories and squirrels can be, working with and nurturing the plants, seeing my vision come to life, and knowing that I'll have herbs and veggies to harvest - settles me.

Bell choir in May plays Memorial Day Sunday and our director has chosen a spiritual hymn. They've asked me to sing it a capella to lead in the bells, so I pulled out my flute to pick through the notes and get a feel for it. I haven't played my flute for anything more than picking out a bell rhythm in years and years. After playing with the hymn for a bit, I paged through my old music and played a bit of this and that. I felt recentered. I felt more me than I have in a while. I think I've been caught up in to-do's and projects and chores and piles and have been cheating myself a bit. Evenings when I needed to "come home" from work, I often just watched TV or napped. Now I see that this really didn't help. Got the mind off work a bit, but didn't renew at all. Getting out my flute and singing a bit really brought back a bit of me that had been buried by the vagaries of daily life.

Here's to a great spring of gardening, music, and creative endeavors that should leave us as renewed as nature is around us.