On Gardening, May 2021
If you want to learn something, read about it.
If you want to understand something, write about it.
If you want to master something, teach it.
-Yogi Bhajan
I recently completed my six-week Spring Series with a group of incredible women. I wanted to share a few words about that experience as it was so impactful in my life. I find teaching to be one of the greatest tools for my own personal growth. Over the last decade while teaching in my studio, I have deepened my understanding of embodiment, posture, breathing, and movement in ways I never imagined. Being able to distill complex concepts into simple, useful tips and discern what will be most beneficial to each individual person has allowed me to fully step into my role as a masterful teacher and well-being coach.
In the recent Spring Series, I pushed myself outside of my comfort zone as I shared aspects of Ayurveda, Pranayama, and life coaching skills that I do not consider myself an expert in. And yet, I found a confidence in my own voice as I connected to the wisdom of many teachers before me. I stepped into this lineage as both teacher and student of a pedagogy for body-mind-spirit expansiveness, fulfillment, and transformation. In teaching on these ancient wisdom traditions, I found the opportunity to not only connect with the group I was sharing guidance with, but with everyone who has come before me. What a beautiful space to experience our interconnectedness.
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I live less than a mile from NYC, but am fortunate to have a home with abundant outdoor space. My home was built in the 1920s and I imagine some of the towering trees were planted then and even before. There are layers to the architecture of the garden that represent certain decades, families, lives, and many stories. For instance, a wooden porch was built on the back of my house by a man who lost his life in the World Trade Center on September 11th. He unfortunately left behind his pregnant wife. I sit outside under the porch sometimes and wonder where she and her child are now and if they have found peace. Currently, some birds have decided to build a nest above in a piece of broken wood that now needs repairing.
My knees and hands covered in soil, I think about the hard, dirty work of gardening. What I want is to have a beautiful, colorful, and vibrant garden. But, that is only the result, it is not the action. The work of gardening is gritty and physically exhausting. There are layers and layers of rocks, resilient weeds, and complex root systems that need to be navigated, dug into, extracted. It requires physical strength and stamina and enduring dedication. The garden, like life, takes hard work, regular maintenance, and loads of patience.
I don't know how much longer I will live here in this home, but my wish is to leave the garden with even more layers of life than when I received it. And hopefully one day, another family will wonder about my story. And we will be connected through generations of life and death, beauty and decay, curiosity, patience, and dirt.