Less is More - The Magic of Cutting Away to Grow

 I was sitting in my yard this weekend, having coffee.  From the bistro table, sitting comfortably in the shady edge of our ancient oak forest, I could see the fruits of my labor, an herb garden that borders the back of our house. Years ago, when we first moved here, I had planted this "potager" bed with useful culinary plants such as marjoram, rosemary, oregano and mint which graciously come back year after year after year.  "Thanks girls!"

 I felt happy that they were flourishing and looking so beautiful, bursting up in anxiousness from the cool weather and plentiful rain we have been receiving all spring. But I cringed a little because I knew that more work was needed and soon, or the overachieving verdure would burst into flower and THAT would be the beginning of the end. The lushness would soon be on its way to spindly, thinning foliage that turned brown and ugly as it prepared to die back for the season.  So, although it was not exactly life or death, it was let go to grow. 

In order to extend this herbage's season, in order to make its beauty last, I needed to get busy and cut away so much of what it had been working so hard to grow.  Like life, we often have to let go of what we have worked so hard on so that it, or we, may flourish.  If we live a long life, this will happen over and over and over again, I presume.

Closing Salt & Soul was a HUGE lesson in letting go for me.  After "letting everything go" for 3 years as I dedicated all of my time and energy to building and running the salt room and after putting 3 years of my life and virtually all of our retirement plan into that business, it was painful, sad and just a little bit humiliating to close our doors.  I realized so many things, like who my real friend are, and what is really important in life and living in this world.  And so, here I am today, spending my time blogging, gardening, making art, running our farm, a 360-degree pivot right back to where I left off pre-covid, pre-Salt & Soul world.  But alas, it is not the same place, this world, this farm, this Self.  We all have changed.  Some for the better, some for the worse (if you choose to look at it that way).  Things have definitely been in need of some clean-up. So, I'm getting busy.

In my spare time I am once again enjoying the book Letting Go - Pathway to Surrender, by David R. Hawkins, M.D., PhD.  I think I mentioned this book in an earlier post, because it is a book that has been helpful to me, and because I seem to be in a continual process of letting go of something at this very important stage of my life, this season of spiritual growth, this chapter of becoming FREE.  Free from fear.  Free from guilt.  Free from shame.  Essentials in the Ascension process.

I'm working hard to be free from attachments, free from acquisitiveness, free from worry.  But all this freedom takes practice and life keeps giving me opportunities to practice. "Thanks!" 

The prescription, it seems is surrender.  Resistance is the disease.  Letting go is the cure.  The mechanism of letting go, according to Dr. Hawkins, is being aware of a feeling, letting it come up, staying with it and letting it run its course.  Allow yourself to have the feeling without resisting it, venting it, fearing it, condemning it or moralizing about it. Realize that it is just a feeling.  Coincidentally, this seems akin to letting my herb garden go...if I don't attend to it, if I just let it run its course, it will die back.

I let go of the salt room so that I can make room for new growth.  I let go of - I surrender- the thoughts of being a failure. I allow myself to sit through the waves of sadness.  I allow time to wash away the pain of the temptation to shame. And as I do, I become free.

I become free to believe in myself and my abilities again.  I become free to appreciate my uniqueness and creativity.  I become free to use the valuable life lessons that I have encountered.  I nurture them and they become catalysts of important ideas and teachers of timeless spiritual knowledge.  I acquire wisdom in realizing that my thoughts are not me, I am simply the observer that is witnessing them along my journey. 

Although not painlessly, yet magically, I am transformed.  And my herbs, well they will enjoy a season of regrowth and vigor and will gladly flavor my food for thought and belly alike!