Gardening

The act of growing your own food or tending to plants in a garden is an act of love.

Bell Hooks, an activist, and writer that I admire says in her book, All About Love: New Visions, that “Love is ‘the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.’” (Hooks 1999). Apply this statement to gardening and we can see that when we are gardening we are extending ourselves (our energy and time) to nurture the growth of the plant, the soil, and the creatures living within the garden. And what does this realization teach us about ourselves, our community?

It teaches us that in order to nurture growth and ultimately heal ourselves, we need to act with love, that way we can heal ourselves and our community from the inside out. Bell Hooks also says, “that love is never simply a feeling, it is an action.” So if we decide to take action through gardening what exactly does that do for us?

Gardening gives us the opportunity to experience these four things, all of which can improve our mental health:

Physical Activity

Gardening requires movement and any kind of movement can help us feel less stressed. Moderate physical activity has been proven to not only improve our mental state at the moment but leaves us better able to respond to stress in the future by encouraging our central and sympathetic nervous systems to communicate (Walden.edu). Gardening requires walking, usually light lifting, and leg strength. It can also require a certain level of dexterity, an added benefit to physical activity, when performing tasks like pruning.

The Green Effect

The Green Effect, which I use to describe the effect that being present in green spaces has on our mental health, is another added benefit of gardening. I previously wrote about the connection between Nature Deficit and our society’s declining mental health. The same applies to gardening, however; gardening takes it a step further by creating an opportunity for active engagement. We can surround ourselves with nature and be passive about it which I believe is step one for healing. Step two is engaging with nature by taking care of it and watching it flourish with the help of our acts of love.

Purpose

Gardening can give you a sense of purpose. To wake up and know that there is something outside your door that requires your energy and attention but won’t necessarily wilt the second you forget, can give you the confidence boost you need without the added pressure of having someone rely on you, which can be stressful at times.

Pablo Picasso once said that “The meaning of life is to find our gift, and the purpose of life is to give it away.” I believe a gift we all have within us is the ability to act with love, so if our gift is acts of love then our purpose in life is to take actions for others inspired by love. Imagine a world where everyone acted out of love? Now, I am certainly not saying this would result in a perfect world. We are human after all and though we may have the intention to act with love, we might not always be able to do it. BUT if the intention is there I think more often than not, we’d not only give our gift but we would be open to receiving it from others as well, potentially healing ourselves and others little bits at a time.

What’s the end result?

Personal Growth

Like most living things, we need three things to grow: sun, water and plenty of space (aka green spaces), movement, and purpose. Most likely, if we’re feeling stuck one of the three is missing. So what better way to tackle personal growth than by engaging in a single activity that gives us the opportunity to experience it all?

Sidenote: For anyone who is reading this that is experiencing the first happenings of winter, and are thinking to yourself, that’s all great but what about right now? Stay tuned for my next post, which will leave with you some practical tips on cultivating your acts of love even in the coldest months.

I’m ROOTing for you.