I'm like a houseplant, leaning in ever-closer towards what she NEEDS to survive, and thrive.
I started somewhat in the dark, it might be said. I was born on a bleak urban street in Den Haag in the Netherlands. Concrete post-war housing in bombed-to-death Holland didn't have trees - the tiny spaces between the housing blocks had windswept-wastelands where "community gardens" were courageously created, mostly to help with food shortages. This is what the actual street I was born on, looked like then.
Migrating to Australia, the dream was to have trees, space, sunshine and a garden. And my family started the 1970s in a brand new brick veneer house, looking at a mountain, in a then-tiny village called Montrose, looking out over Mount Dandenong from the kitchen window.
But the garden was regulated to within and inch of its life. The front garden was about impressing others - flowers, several flowering trees, an elegant and exotic persimmon tree, lilacs, roses, and a front fence covered with climbing pink geraniums and honeysuckle. The left side of the quarter acre garden was strictly for fruit trees - apples, pears, peaches, grapefuit, apricots, plums. The back corner next to the compost zone? A MASSIVE lemon. The back 1/3rd of the property was a SERIOUS vegetable zone, complete with raspberry and asparagus patches, loganberries, red currants and row after row of seasonal veggies. 4 tiny kiddy gardens adjoined it, one for each of us children. And there was a neatly mown patch of grass in the middle - but you'd be taking your life in your hands if, sweet Goddess forbid, a cricket ball DARED to go into the veggies...! We were not encouraged to play in the garden, and worked hard most evenings to harvest, pick and water.
FFWD 30 years and you will find me in Northern Thailand, where nature has become not only my muse and my constant companion, but where her wildness enthralls me more each day.
These trees at a local Chiang Mai temple show you the kind of environment I now CHOOSE to surround myself with:
And here? My business Pure Thai Natural Co Ltd buys herbs and beeswax from indigenous people to make hand-crafted natural products - and I spend A LOT of time out in the mountains, searching out viable, sustainable sources of organic herbs that can provide employment for indigenous and displaced people. Yup, that's me at the back, learning about the Lisu tribe's local plants from my Lisu friend, Punnee.
My outer-urban, isolated garden provides me with incredible insights into the natural world. Here? a wild reishi mushroom growing on the remains of a dead mango tree at the side of the house. It's about 15 inches across and one of the serious medicines for fighting cancer and boosting natural immune response. Usually I dry and tincture them.
It would be fair to say my relationship to nature has evolved - a slow falling in love that deepens every day.
Today, I'm working at the office and thinking about securing the next load of organic beeswax we will need for orders throughout October and November - this is beeswax we bought last month from our Karen community at the back of Lamphun province.
But in the back of my mind, I'm pondering the need to thin out the HUGE bamboo at the corner of the garden, and wondering if the weather will hold:
I'm hoping this next year to spend MUCH more time dancing with my Muse - to feel her teasing me with new fragrances, new natural medicines, new product ideas, new joys. And to allow her to work her magic in my little urban Dutch girl's soul, all the way over here in much-wilder Northern Thailand.
Where my natural soul is endlessly happier.
Contributed towards the Community Challenge, What Is Your Relationship With Nature?
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