Legacy of books and compost

I adore the feel of rich compost in my hands and feet. Gardening in flip flops beckons as the spring warms up. Living here with light sandy soil means I’m constantly improving that quality and gathering every scrap of fruit and vegetable skins, dead flowers and leaves into buckets by the back door.

I also love books and magazines, reading as much as I can to improve the depth of my own writing. This week a friend recycled a feminist title from 1985 called ‘The Dance of Anger’ by Harriet Goldhor Lerner. The author invites us to examine family patterns of behaviour going back through the generations.

Looking at my own family and friendships, I’m connected to women who find a common language through their gardens, giving and gaining pleasure from this space. I’m also mindful how the women in my life have shaped my own beliefs and behaviours, and the values I am passing on to my own daughters as they fly the family home.

Although, Lerner’s book says it’s a woman’s guide, there’s plenty in her stories of value for the men in my life. In my corporate coaching, for example, I always hear the stories of a father’s words to his son played out in another way. The frustrations of a manager with his colleagues so often stem from the family relationships. Our behaviour has deep rooted experiences.

Like a fluent writer, an enthusiastic gardener creates a legacy for the future generation to build on. Today’s fuchsia rhododendron breaking into flower owes its space here in my garden to an adventurous plant hunter travelling in the 1800s.

Yesterday’s rain combined with this morning’s sun loosens the soil for me to grab the emerging bindweed before it strangles the spinach and rocket seedlings in the veg patch. Yesterday’s apple cores and red pepper seeds will provide the compost to nurture the next generation.

A poem for claiming your space

Turquoise Moments - a poem

It doesn’t excite me that you have a ‘to do’ list written late last night, that you’re working through dutifully until you can live your life. I want to see you wake up free to face each day, as master of your time.

I don’t want to feel you pushed and pummelled low, made small by others’ power. I want to hear you claim your rightful space and energy allowing it flow free, leaving your own footprints in the wet sand.

It doesn’t interest me when you hold back from resentment, anger or obligation. I want to know that you honestly accept each challenge face on, and ride the downhill bumps with exhilaration in your hair and shouting ‘Yes!’.

I don’t want to find you shattered into pieces, like feathers on the wind, with body and mind out of synch. I need to you to be wholehearted, fresh and healthy. Truly alive in the moment.

It saddens me when you are buffeted relentlessly by every storm. I want you to know you can find a safe haven that you can return to within yourself, time after time, and create the anchor of your being.

I want to know if you can live your life, stand on the edge and fly, not hang around in the shadows. There’s just one of you.

The turquoise moments beckon from the mountain tops. They call you from the depths of the ocean.

Copyright Kate Burton April 2009

Stand by Me

Some mornings there are just snippets of turquoise moments, short times that make you feel good. I love the international connections that come unexpectedly when the world seems joined up. Here's one such moment that just popped into my email just now, thanks to a French coach who I haven't yet met in person, Tini Korner...

http://www.musicme.com/Playing-For-Change/videos/Stand-By-Me-0888072313071.html

I'd like to dedicate it to one of the attendees on my kick-start writers' workshops: Glenis and the book she's writing called 'Stand By Your Man' which is the tale of supporting her husband through the diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer.

Who are you standing by and who is standing by you?

Blue diamonds

Blue Diamond tulips are taking pride of place in the garden this week. While much of the garden appears random, the tulips are deliberate. Last autumn I sifted through varieties I’ve enjoyed in the past and chose the best performer. I ordered a job lot and planted seven large terracotta pots with shades of blue winter pansies and the tulips tucked beneath.

Of all the flowers in the garden, it would be hard not to fall in love with tulips. From the moment they first push through the soil to reveal their sexy heads to the time their petals sag and drop, they have an air of mystery and pleasure. No wonder the Dutch merchants of the 17th century go so mesmerised by them that they bid crazy money for tulip bulbs in their frenzy.

These tulips have an extra poignancy for me. I first chose this variety on the day of a friend’s funeral in the village of Warmond in the Netherlands. As they bloom for the next month, I feel the strength of connection with her and a friendship that began on the first day at university and lasted for 35 years. Such is the power of plants that they connect past, present and future generations.

The writer Paulo Coehlo says that of the thousands of letters he gets from his readers, many of them talk about wanting to be a gardener. That’s no surprise. I well remember days in a corporate office when I’d walk past the gardeners and wish I had their job and not mine. Such is the pull of soil over technology; that much though I love my laptop, the garden would win if forced to make a choice.

All the characters are out here today offering a backdrop to the glamorous and sexy tulips; the bullying Ivy; the sadly deceased Robinia; the sweetly perfumed rounded heads of Virburnum, the blossom of the crab apple; teeny narcissi interspersed with self-seeded stipa tenuissima grasses, deep crimson azaleas and early flowering clematis. Sweet peas are putting down their roots ready to rampage up their supports.

Beneath the surface all the plants display amazing strength and resilience, determined to hold their space and grow up to the light; ready for their moment in the spotlight.