The Root of the Problem
Winter is a good time to root out those things that lie deep inside us before they have time to grow rampant and get tangled up with everything else in your life. Gardening, it turns out, can be a useful metaphor for personal development.
Here in London, it’s still the middle of winter. Most days are cold, dark and grey. The other day, I sat down with a cup of tea and my computer focused on all the things I wanted to work on and accomplish. But something felt out of sorts. I decided to put everything down and go to the garden.
I used to think gardening was what you do from spring til autumn, when it feels nice to be outside. There’s not much growing at the end of January. But as I looked around, I noticed a few things that were flourishing and unwanted — nettles, briers and green alkanet.
On the surface, all of these can be painful — nettles sting, briers have thorns and alkanet is prickly. More than that, they’re not particularly beneficial plants and will overtake most gardens if left unchecked.
If you don’t deal with these pests when there’s nothing else much in bloom, they will become completely entangled with everything else that’s growing by June or July. By that time, the ground can be hard and dry so it’s almost impossible to get down to the roots of any plants. The most you’ll be able to do is pull out the leaves and stems, cutting or stinging yourself in the process.
It’s tempting to think about all of the things you want to accomplish in the future. In so doing, you may be racing ahead to focus on all the things you’re “supposed” to be then rather than where you are now. Months down the road, you find that the ground around you is already set. And the best you can do is to cut back the unwanted things on the surface only, dealing with the manifestations of our problems and not their roots.
These days, the ground is moist and loose and with a pitchfork it doesn’t take much effort to get down and extract the deepest roots. It is also incredibly satisfying to leverage some soil, reach in and pull out a long taproot that you know would just cause problems further down the line. Interestingly, the roots of these plants have no sting or thorn to them at all.
All of this can serve as metaphor for structuring your life, busy though it may be, in line with natural forces and cycles. As you look forward to the months ahead and all the projects and activities you want to germinate and bear fruit, can you also take time today to look within and observe the roots of what will not serve you going forward? Can you pause for a moment to loose the soil of yourself and go within to extract that which will only entangle and drown out those projects and activities if left unchecked?
Now, while the time is still fresh, pull out the prickly, stinging nuisances deep within. Pull them out by their roots, lay the ground for what lay ahead and feel the satisfaction!
Originally published at https://www.galliant.life on February 6, 2021.
