the most consistent medicine for despair.
A dear friend recently told me that one of the names of the plant above is gill-of-the-garden. when I heard it, I took a big, audible sigh and smiled wide at the presence of poetics in my often clunky, utilitarian home language. Quite possibly, the best place to find such lovely expressions is in the soft, quirky common names of plants.
I’ve been following this plant around, watching it wander up and down the rocky garden boundary, pushing through cracks, and nestled beside the plentiful wood violets. Maybe this little ‘garden escapee’ really is the gills of the garden, bringing some space into the tight places, some oxygen into the warming soil.
Going out to the gills-of-the-garden, getting close enough to smell the dirt and slow enough to stay awhile, is getting a dose of what else is possible. The garden is such a place of possibility, a diverse landscape where I understand how humans really can collaborate to create something utterly beautiful. When I’m here, I’m reminded that - though it’s easier to see the fact that our species is a bit of a menace, bent towards battling our way through - we are quite capable of using our hands and heads to benefit many. It’s a self-compassion practice to notice where we humans can add some beauty.
* * *
Living in this time, with so much destruction, fear, and devastation, it is easy to submerge into despair. The threat to black bodies in the U.S. right now is unfathomable. The threat to women’s bodies in the U.S. right now is immeasurable. The threat to whole countries of people under attack is undigestible.
I do not want to be numb to these truths - to be whole, I must stay engaged. But also, to not lose myself in the thick sleepless soup of despair - to stay agile - I step into the garden…
Peonies in the moonlight. Brimming, pregnant with creative possibility. What color will unfold as the moon begins to wane? Next to peony is rose, whom I uprooted from my California home because I couldn’t bare to leave without her. Still no sign of life above ground, but as I touch my hand to the base I can tell it’s there, waiting for safety to re-emerge. Turning toward the moonlight, I see the plot of medicinals newly landed in the soil. Bee balm leans towards chamomile with a secret. Arnica spreads easily towards the shade of motherwort - two priestesses of the blood. And little astragalus, who I thought was certainly a goner, is pushing up into the bright mooned sky, spreading its pinnate leaves like a woven tapestry.
The recovery in my heart is quicker than I expect.
The metaphors are less important than the radical act of balancing the palpable weight of grief with the density of beauty.
The most consistent medicine for despair is the simple practice of stepping into acute awareness.
There is always beauty to be found.