It comes as no surprise to anyone who has read this blog for more than 5 minutes that I consider myself at least somewhat Pagan and am very attracted to Wicca and to the Reclaiming tradition. The one thing I’ve always felt a disconnect on is this whole idea of “earth based religion”. I mean, when I think about earth based, I think about camping and hiking and being generally outdoorsy, which I *so* am not. Nope, don’t like the whole outdoorsy thing.
Except, I was reading some other blogs today and several were talking about their gardens and how they reconnect them with Mother Earth. Well, that made me sit back and think, because I actually do love my garden. I’m not much into flowers and what not, but I love growing food. I’d love some day to have a big place outside of town where I can have a big garden, maybe some livestock and chickens. My grandfather had a small farm when I was a kid, and I loved spending time with him in the garden.
After reading the blogs, I was thinking about why I didn’t put a garden in this year. The short reason, of course, is that I don’t have much energy this year. I put in a garden last year with flagging energy and it was just a disaster. The weeds mostly ate everything, because I just didn’t enjoy getting in the garden last year. I was so anemic that it took everything I had just to go to work every day, so the garden was neglected. I thought to myself, “I didn’t get as much energy out of the garden last year as I was putting into it…..” That’s when it struck me. I really *do* get energy from working in the garden. Yeah, I get physically tired when I do gardening, but in the long run, it gives me more energy than I put into it. That’s why I didn’t enjoy it last year. My energy levels were so low to start with that I was too drained to pull energy back from the earth as I worked.
I really do connect with Mother Earth, in my way. Maybe I’m not such a bad Pagan after all *grins*.
I’m looking forward to next year when I can put in a really nice garden.
