Day 54 Listening to the Mountain

It’s warm and sunny today, which means I get to spend a few hours digging in the dirt, before I do my yoga for the day! Give me a wheelbarrow and a couple yards of bark mulch and I’m happy. Give me a vacuum cleaner and a floor mop and I’ll tell you exactly what you can do with them.

Deer and coyotes watch us from here...

Our backyard is a rocky slope, made up of fill that has, over the past nine years,  naturalized with mostly native grasses, thistle and blackberry.

The path so far...

 Pastoral from a distance, but close up, it’s an eyesore. So I’ve been working on turning it into something beautiful, but still natural and low-maintenance.

My plan is to cover the wild and weedy area on the northside of our house with landscape fabric and bark mulch, continuing what I started around the west side. I call it my 20-year project. But hopefully this season I will make it across to the east side, nearest our neighbour, who has been patiently and kindly ignoring the overgrown mess adjacent to their manicured outdoor entertainment area.

Mine is no namby-pamby white-cotton glove affair. It’s a put-your-back-into-it job that usually leaves me with pleasantly aching muscles, cuts and scrapes from brambles, sweat and today at least, mud. 

When I began this project, I should say, way back when we first looked at this lot, my mind began whirling with the possibilities and potential. We could have Butchart Gardens, right in our own backyard, I thought!

Then I realized I was being ridiculous.

Minter Gardens. Maybe.

The work that remains to be done, and my trusty side-kick.

“I’m strong and creative,” I told my husband. “I’ll make this into a showcase.”

“As long as you can do it all yourself,” he answered, “because we’re house-broke.”

So, that’s how it started. I’m strong, creative and Mennonite, babe. You won’t believe what I can do with nothing. Tillers of the earth, ya’ know.

“What’s your plan?” hubby asked, dubiously, when the biggest change was an enormous, and unsightly, pile of dirt.

“I’m not sure,” I answered. “A path through here, I think. Unless I hit a rock. Or a big stump.”

“Then what?” he persisted, the line between his eyebrows deepening. “Terraces? Steps? Retaining walls? How are you going to keep the weeds out? Won’t the deer eat everything you plant? How long will it take? This is going to cost $70,000, isn’t it?”

Unless he costs out a project himself, he believes all endeavours will run either $700, $7000 or $70,000. It’s just where his brain goes. Either that or “and we’ll all die.”

“I have to buy bark mulch and fabric,” I admitted. “But it won’t cost much.”

“Maybe you can draw out a schematic for me,” he said. “With estimated completion dates. So I know what to expect.”

I took a deep, cleansing breath, straightened my shoulders and looked at my mountain. It’s not going anywhere. If I put the right plants in the right spots, work with what I have, I can bring out the natural beauty of this slope. If something doesn’t work the first time around, I’ll try something else, until it feels right. Maybe not Minter or Butchart. But right.

I looked him in the eye. “Honey,” I said. “I’m listening to the mountain. I’ll do what works, and I’ll be done when I’m finished. Don’t worry. It’s going to be beautiful.”

I was remembering this conversation while I was doing my standing postures in class today. Despite a morning of hard, physical, dirty work, my practice was strong and smooth. Even Standing-Head-to-Knee! Not perfect, far from it, but… better.

It seems that, as with my landscaping project, there’s a limit to the control I can exert over my muscles, my body – my 80-year project, hopefully. And I have to focus on the potential, instead of the potential problems, to find the right way. My right way.

The name of my favourite standing meditation pose?

Tadasana. Mountain Pose.