If you've been on Snaps you've probably seen my irises as they've come out over the last fortnight. In many ways, there are a gift in this time of mourning. I've rather focussed on them as I've been navigating how to live without my father in the world as I knew him. It's been hard to find joy - and so, because I do have a box of personal tools to navigate difficult things, I've consciously focussed on the irises. What did they have to teach me, the first one blooming after Dad died?
The first lesson was that life goes on, everywhere, all around us. It is possible to mourn the end of a life, yet celebrate LIFE with capital letters. In many ways I'm lucky it's Spring - this lesson as a gift is all around me. Everything is flowering and buzzing. At first I was suprised at this - no, not suprised - just full of a sharp kind of knowing. Life does not care that one father has died. He is one of many. Look at all the other living things - what a miracle of a world we live in that we can hold both death and life in our hearts at the same time.
The second lesson of the irises was ephemerality and impermanence. Nothing lasts, after all. This gift I already knew, but the irises helped me meditate on that. Things bloom, have life, and die, only to burst forth from the bud again the following Spring. My father too lives again in our memories. There's a photo Mum sent me today of us making pasta in the house when we first moved in. There's my parents and I laughing - I think we're laughing at Dad's poor pasta kneading skills. It's a memory I had forgotton and it took flight in my head like the petals of the iris and made me smile.
And every year, I think, I will look at the irises and remember that it was this time he left us, but I'll be reminded with something beautiful and joyful, something that makes me smile amongst the sadness.
The third gift of the irises was nothing to do with my father at all - it was just about how cool it is that gardeners can share plants just becaue they want others to share in their own joy.
'Look at how beautiful the orange irises are!' I announce in the local online group. People gush and ask if I'm dividing them. Of course! I say - after they flower I'll let you know. Another woman offers me some maroon bulbs if I'd like. Of course I would! The irises that bloomed this Spring were all gifts from local garden meets ups and personal swaps with the neighbours.
I truly love how nature gifts us such understandings. All we need to do is listen and meditate for them to appear. The irises have truly cheered me up this month and I'm so grateful for their short lived presence.
This week's Hive Garden challenge is centred around the theme 'GIFT' - perhaps gifts we've been given that are garden related, or how gardens might present a gift themselves, or whether we make gifts to give people from our garden. Anyone can enter and the challenge comes out every Saturday.
With Love,
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