Saturday, August 15, 2009

Much Needed Respite

Pollinators, pollinators everywhere in the yard! Bees of all shapes and sizes, butterflies and hummingbirds...Everywhere I look there is buzzing, humming and the fluttering of wings...swamp milkweed, green-headed coneflower, ironweed, joe-pye weed, cardinal flower, garden phlox all playing host to our tiny native wildlife...I feel like a shepherdess when I am out watching...

So began a Facebook entry a few minutes ago after coming in from trimming in the garden. I have spent my time today inside and out, with the outside times be a respite from the upheaval and concern for many of my husband's coworkers we are living with the last few days. Close friends and colleagues are being laid of at the State Library of Pennsylvania, from the least senior to the most senior and I feel like life as we knew it has completely spun out of control. We think his job is secure, as of yesterday, but with each new surprising revelation we wonder all over again. So, as I said, the garden is a place of sanctuary, a place of much needed refuge for me, this time, rather than just for the wildlife.

I've been thinking lately that the longer we live, the longer we love people and pets, places and endeavors, the greater the loss when they are gone. Over the years, loss upon loss changes us and makes us more tender or more hardened, more pliable or more rigid. Being out in the wilds, or in the garden where the wild comes to live along side me, doesn't take away feelings of loss or fear but it does provide a place big enough to hold these emotions and to provide comfort as almost no other place can. The natural world pries my eyes off myself and always points them to something, to Someone greater than my own worries. And though I may liken myself to a shepherdess at times, there are other times, like right now, when I feel more like a lost sheep in need of a Shepherd. And like the sheep my only security in times of danger comes in keeping my eyes on Him as He leads the way forward