Cultivating - A Contemplative Practice
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Photo Credit: Dianne Morris Jones
The word “cultivating” might stir up thoughts of farming, crops, and planting cycles. Up until last year, I had only a little experience with anything resembling cultivating, and that was with simple backyard landscaping and flowering pots on our front porch and back deck. However, this time last year after we got home from Jill’s wedding in Nepal and the world was in a pandemic, we found ourselves at home…by ourselves…with lots of time on our hands. We decided to try gardening. Suffice it to say, the cost per vegetable that survived our beginning cultivation experiments was much more than the cost per vegetable at the grocery store!
Photo Credit: Dianne Morris Jones
But we discovered we loved gardening. We will be planting more vegetables this year! There is just such joy in coming outside to discover the beauty and growth as we peek at the blossoms of the baby eggplant and eagerly watch the stages of growth for the cucumber. We loved tasting the delicious flavors from the garden. We had fun showing our two granddaughters the process of planting, and waiting, and watching and celebrating the growth together. Of course, watering was their favorite part! We are definitely beginners in the gardening scene, but grateful for the opportunity to notice nature and the magnificence of the process of the growth cycles, and eager to learn more.
Photo Credit: Dianne Morris Jones
Photo Credit: Dianne Morris Jones
There’s another sense in which we can think of cultivating, though. Cultivating life has many similarities to cultivating vegetables and flora. The planting of dreams, watering with hope and waiting for growth. The wondering in the dormancy of winter if anything is really happening, or the questioning in the dry and down cycles if there is something worth waiting for. The patience and resilience needed amidst the “try, fall down, and get back up” cycles.
Now, as we are hopefully moving out of the pandemic, how does a sense of cultivating apply to our re-entry into life? How do we cultivate care for our hearts as we grieve – not only the personal losses and struggles so many of us have experienced, but the collective and complicated grief of so many? And what about the anxieties we feel as we approach the time of going “back to normal?” What about the social anxiety? “I am not sure I know how to have a conversation.” “What will it be like to be around people again?” “I can’t picture what ‘next’ is going to look like.” “I want to be hopeful, but I feel scared.” Or what if we had a taste of something better, something richer, something deeper in the midst of the pandemic, and we’re wondering if that can be cultivated and incorporated into life going forward? “I don’t know if I even want to go back to ‘normal’ as it was.” So many hesitancies as we look forward to the next season of our lives…
Photo Credit: Dianne Morris Jones
In cultivating a life, there are so many options of which seeds to plant. How to reflect, what to improve, how to develop by paying careful attention to specific moments, fostering the virtues and values that matter to us, devoting time and thought to even the idea of what we might want to enhance or change. Possibly it isn’t about “improving” or “bettering.” Instead, cultivating is about being mindful of the cycle or growth moment of accepting…embracing… reflecting….
May April be a beautiful month for you of cultivating your deepest desires, cultivating your biggest dreams, and especially cultivating hope amidst your most complicated and confusing struggles. May it be a time that your hurt can heal with the hope of spring – in your garden and in your heart.
Roger has beautifully encapsulated the tenets about Cultivating that you will be seeing in the daily posts/PDF for April through his poem, A Journey of Cultivation. Enjoy!
A Journey of Cultivation
Let’s accompany each other on a cultivation journey.
Authenticity will set us on a path paved with awe and beauty.
We begin with courage to discover the journey’s arc.
Along the way, we’ll give others our encouragement–with enthusiasm,
forgive an old wrong, and find the gold of friendship. We will–
Offer abounding gratitude for the voyage. Never, ever give up hope.
Proffer hospitality to strangers and friends, one and all. Imagine things
a new way. Let kindness be our religion and laughter our practice.
We’ll let go of grievances, new and old. Shine our light in the world. Let
love, patience and peace rule hearts. Sacredly hold perspective.
Live in the presence of now and ripen with the seasons of our souls.
We shall sit in silence and trust wisdom for cultivated growth–
generously unleashed in you and me.
- Roger Jones
This month, I will be posting daily reflections on the concept of cultivating on Instagram and Facebook. I hope you will join me in the journey of exploring the concept of cultivating seeds. If you are not on social media, you are invited to download and print the PDF below for a daily reflection.
Cultivating Beauty Through Contemplative Photography Virtual Four Week Workshop
