Mentored by Nature's Rhythms
Slow Down in the Garden: July's Soul Session
Hi I’m Debbie, a spiritual director, writer and mother based in Glasgow. I offer stories, ponderings and gentle invitations to share a moment with your soul. I host a regular Sunday Soul Session; this is a time for quiet reflection, playful creativity and warm conversation.
Hello friends,
How has your July felt? I’m in my usual summer swamp of busy house, unrealistic expectations (my own) and grasping for moments of equilibrium. It's not surprising that this month’s Soul Session theme is Slow Down, I know I need that. I delight in summer’s opportunities to be outside, so we gathered at The Wash House Garden in Parkhead for an evening last week. Here’s your invitation to take these ponderings and find your own outside space, or simply pause and pretend you were right there with me.
Come on in. Look for the unambiguous wooden gate sandwiched between the sandstone Salvation Army building and the grey flats. Push the gate open, walk up the narrow path framed by wildflowers, then turn right and you’re here in a little slice of tranquility, ripe with flowers and veg.
Have a look around. It’s half an acre, overlooked by the residents of the flats; theres a wooden heron, there’s the wee pond, can I make you a cup of tea? Meander between the beds of vegetables, allow your eyes to delight in the textures and colours. Listen, you can hear the buses and the people of the city out on the main road. Listen, you can hear goldfinches, the bees buzzing around the nasturtiums. Listen long enough you might hear the whispers of your own soul.
The rhythms of nature offer us chances to pause and slow down. I wonder what landscapes mentor a different pace for you? There’s the steady rhythm of wave and water found on the coast. Muffled shade found under trees. Footsteps stomped on the side of a hill. There are plenty of invitations in the garden too: the bee dotting between flower heads, attentiveness to the quiet changes between seasons.
Journal Prompts:
How do you respond to the prompt to slow down? Does it feel like an invitiation? A command? Perhaps you feel resistance or the impossibility of it?
How do you feel about the pace of your life at the moment?
Where have you been that has helped you find a slow moment? What landscapes help you to slow down?
As for me…
I parcel up and offer thoughts on slowing down in the garden and I know this nudge is for me too.
As I stood watching the bees, I pondered the Lao Tzu quote (above). On my mind were potential work projects, pressing commitments, unanswered questions. And I heard the gentle whisper “The answer is not more”.
A friend recently shared the famous Ecclesiastes passage about a time for everything, and the phrase that stayed in my hand was ‘a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them’. I want to root down, to go deep in the things I’m already doing, rather than reaching around for more and next as is my way. I want to carry this pebble phrase as I discern steps into this next season.
A Summer Snippet
I’ve been sharing Summer Snippets across on Instagram, as a practice of recording the Little Stories I mentioned last month. Here’s a summer snippet of another garden moment and our new addition…
“That Wednesday I wore my cute earrings just because and my fringe behaved. I’d been out with the kids and claimed the screentime pause to sit outside with a cup of tea. That Wednesday I sat by the pot of sweet peas that he planted because he knows I love them. I grabbed Lomond the puppy and he succumbed to the snuggles. Summer 2024 will be known as Puppy Summer and I reminded myself not to miss the joy of it in the adjustments and training. “I’m just enjoying this moment with my sweet peas and my puppy” I told Paul as he caught a photo. Perhaps he recognised the flicker of presence kindled in that moment. That Wednesday I liked the picture.”
May you find moments to slow down, to stop and stare and to listen to the rhythms of nature this summer.
With love,
Debbie
Leisure by W. H. Davies
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?—
No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows:
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance:
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began?
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
Beautiful. As always !