everything gardens

I have a renewed perspective on the phrase.
I have just moved.

We have moved into a large stone house at the base of a hill, at the edge of town. Ontario. The downstairs neighbors are fighting. The neighbor below me is Cathy and her boyfriend Terry. Nasty people they are; crabs in the bucket making sure no body thinks they can get out. I tend to become self conscious and hard on myself around that energy.

My other downstairs neighbor is Wanda, a lost punk poet, mother of two, and on today, our second meeting, she shed tears, and already I loved her. She is supportive, and needs support, she needs the flowers. Everyone does really. This whole scene needs a fat injection of good energy.

The world here feels tight, like a clenched fist. I sense a violent rebellion, a volatility, perhaps more likely to lash out in a race-related shooting than an uprising. I can feel its pressure on me. I am having to, I will have to chose not to buckle, on a daily level, and remain upright, buoyant, living as I want to live with the fun in it.
Gardening.

To garden.
As I walk along, for the first or second time, I write mental lists of things to do:

• pick up garbage here
• pull out these bricks and put in stone stairs
• find the trails in those woods
• put a planter box there
• do a photo shoot there

As a child, I was baffled by how people could not art the spaces around them. How could people not make spaces more beautiful?

I know much of has to do with laziness. It is not that they cant, we couldn't, but that we don't. We do other things.

"Which is the most universal human characteristic: fear or laziness?"

As I enter this new space, this new neighborhood, I am filled with ideas; fresh eyes can see so many possibilities and improvements. But also I can sense my reluctance and self-consciousness, worrying what the neighbors will think. It will be an interesting challenge to remain light and playful, while the grey people call me crazy. Or at least I think they will.
It is always a balance of time to play and time to bust ass for cash, as to how much gets done. What will I do? What deals can I swing? What health will I manage for myself? How bring can I shine, how hard will I rock it, in this balance with this new environment?
Everything gardens.
Everything and everyone affect the space around them. Everything encourages lives and deaths because of their actions.

Wanda welled up with tears today, and she said that they hurt her because she had not cried in such a time. We were looking at the picture of her little girl. We were talking about people with special spirits, grieving, challenges when they are multiplied on each other, magnified. I was just standing with her there, listening. Woman to woman. There was a moment where I had a flashback to Yenson's 'Heart of the Shaman' workshop, the slide show of the human experience. The direct contact with That, that Holy Moment, ( a sensation much like vertigo for me), is the essence of life, and Listening to the Land affirmed that in the most multi-faceted way for me.
Wanda and I hung out a bit, I did some theatrical story telling, and then got to gardening. I ripped stuff out, did some pruning, and began to reshape the space. Here, I have jumped into their lives, I jumped into her life and how will we garden each other?

How will I deal with this new culture, these changes and challenges? How will I survive these days, financially? What will I pull together to balance my time and cash flow? The possibilities are infinite.
I felt caged-in in this city today. Compressed. I tried to run and everywhere I turned it was a main road with traffic. It smells like Japan, that sweet, bright aroma of heavy traffic. The cars felt like whips to me, a lash with every one that passed. An assault. A gauntlet. And so I ran, back home, to where my garden will be.
I am going to create a bunch of ecosystems and environments, walls that shelter people, buffer energies. I am going to change the energetic flow form of this place.
And how will it change me?