What Gardeners Know

Cinqo de Mayo Rose
It seems that the medical establishment is just catching up with what inner gardeners everywhere already know: Mindfulness meditation is good for us and can reduce stress-related illnesses and boost the immune system. According to Dr. Hillary Campbell, as quoted in a recent Sacramento Bee article, http://www.sacbee.com/2013/04/01/5306627/medical-establishment-ponders.html , “(Mindfulness meditation) brings on a sense of peace and calmness. And it helps your attention and focus.”

Gardening done well is a moving meditation. After all, if you don’t pay close attention to what you’re doing and stay in the moment, you could destroy the very things you’re trying to grow. The repetitive movements of tasks such as weeding are familiar to every gardener as a mechanism for slowing down and looking inward.

Many gardening tasks require us to sit or kneel on, or dig in the ground, where we inhale the earthy smells and feel the texture of soils and plants. We physically reconnect to the Earth when we garden and when we’re done for the day, experience complete relaxation, deeper, slower breathing, and feelings of calm and leisureliness. All is right with the world.

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