A few years ago you would have never found me with my hands in a pile of organic soil mixed with mushroom manure, but that is exactly where I found myself this past week. The journey to these soiled hands in front of me has been nothing short of a beautiful experience and sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure it is all really happening. I am sure you are wondering why I am pinching myself to make sure my hands were really mixing in manure with soil, but the knowledge I have attained in these past few hours of creating my own garden is really just a metaphor for what I have been through in the past ten years.
The idea of growing my own food has always excited me since becoming a Holistic Nutritionist because my previous skewed relationship with food had been straightened out into a loving, nurturing friendship and being sustainable in the world which takes growing and cooking for granted is a way for me to give back to mother nature. A few years ago, a friend of mine taught me about the “feel” of the soil and how getting your hands dirty is the only way you will know what condition the soil needs to be in order to nurture the seeds and plants I was about to put into the garden bed. It dawned on me how if I decided to wear gloves, I would not truly be able to FEEL the soil, but there would be a barrier restricting my skin. For so long, I wore gloves when it came to my own health. I never wanted to feel the symptoms that so boldly spoke to me about my dis-ease and imbalances. It is easy to see these imbalances as problematic nuisances that we just want to silence.
We are all our own individual gardens, needing to increase the organic content of the soil into which we plant by adding top quality "compost" or foods containing minerals, vitamins and phytonutrients. We need to allow the “pests” in our lives that we look at as bugs to pollinate, mitigate diseases and act as a barometer for our health. It is time to change the way we think. We will not sprout into who the Universe needs us to be if we do not water our environment which provides us with the nutrients and love in order to survive. Sometimes you need to just set the gloves aside and get your hands dirty in order to feel how healthy the soil around you really is. Throughout my journey, I had a huge reality check when I took my gloves off because I had allowed my soil to dry up and had not been taking care of my own garden. As soon as I started adding nutrients back into my soil, I have sprouted and am back onto the path of life the Universe has intended me to be.
Good soil is the foundation to a healthy garden and it is never too late to start restoring your soil.
From my garden to yours,
Kristina
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