Right now, I feel like this poppy in our backyard.

Pregnant with dreams and ideas and aspirations and hopes and needs and wants, I feel as though my shell can’t hold it in anymore and it’s all about to spill out in living color.

Petal by petal unfolding, breaking the seams of fear and pride and uncertainty–I feel change coming.

And I know that it is time.

It is time, to bloom.

I am not a master gardener. Last year was each of our first attempt. Most things grew. Some things didn’t. But in those few short months of sowing and reaping, I was changed by the way Mother Nature coaxes a sprout from a seed, and a bud from a vine. I was changed by the chance I had to participate in the process.

And in the fruit there is nourishment.

On Monday night (family night) we began again … at the very beginning:

Soil.
It’s a very good place to start.

Last year was our first Spring in our new home. Previous owners had let the garden beds become overrun with weeds and grass. So cleaning it out was quite the chore. Each Saturday, from sun-up to late afternoon, was spent on hands and knees, backs bowing to the Earth. An interesting posture, wouldn’t you say? For clearing the land.

The soil here in our parts is mostly clay so we had much to till and mulch to mix. It was difficult, back-breaking work. But after last year’s deep clean and maintenance through the Fall, there was little more to do this year than add a bit of new bumper crop (mulch) and a sprinkling of fertilizer.

Just the sight of that healthy, dark black dirt makes my heart flip-flop with joy. And the smell? Oh, its sweetness is divine! But the touch? … that, my friends, is the place where communion really begins. There is something so honest and beautiful about running your hands through the dirt. There is something so healing about digging deep into the Earth and lifting from Her skin the weeds that tangle below Her surface, strangling the goodness She grows.

You cannot help–there on your knees, bent before your Maker–but fall into cadence, running the fingers of your mind through the soil of your soul. Weighing its potential for growth, seeking the softener to make (or keep) it pliable, carefully plucking the weeds that tangle and bind, making a place for the blooming to begin.