Flowering Fridays: On Weeding

Zinnia in garden, August 2009

To be a gardener, you've got make peace with weeding.

So much of gardening is related to weeding. Relatively little time is spent planting and harvesting, compared to the regular demands that weeding requires.

I've been gardening now for 15 years, and weeding is one of my favorite things about gardening. (Second only to walking around the garden and enjoying it!)

I find weeding centering and calming. Almost meditative in its effectiveness in getting me out of my monkey mind and into the moment.

For me, weeding works best in short bursts. I love to weed while I'm on the phone, or when I'm out in the garden to pick tomatoes and beans or cut some flowers for bouquets.

Doing too much weeding at once is too strenuous and hard.

Recently, I've actually done relatively little weeding in my literal garden, but there is a lot of weeding going on in the interior garden of our home.

As we continue to move toward our goal of having the house on the market by the first week in October, we have been culling through everything in our house.

While I'm pretty good with real garden-variety weeding, I'm feeling like I am finally getting the hang of the weeding of physical items (after many, many years of hoarding tendency that leads to heavy overgrowth).

It's helped that we've been weeding for more than a year. (See here.)

And I'm getting how great it feels to release all the excess into the universe.

(And it's has felt especially good to just give it all away for free. It brings me such joy to release our "stuff" to someone who finds it of use and meaning to them.)

Energetically I feel like I'm so much more trusting of the abundance of the universe.

I'm getting in my bones that everything I need, I will have. I can release the stuff that I save for "someday," that I don't love or don't use.

Also, I'm finding that I'm more masterful at weeding my mind of thoughts I don't want to plant there, and I can't help but believe that this makes a difference, too.

My mom's healing journey has also inspired me of late.

I'm reminded of how fragile life is and how imperative it is to appreciate and enjoy every step of the journey to the fullest. It's sounds cliched, but it's a very empowered and magical place to live from.

Of course, I've had help in my journey, too.

Here are a few resources that have inspired me to a new relationship to my "stuff":

• James A. Ray's books and seminars (From him, I learned about creating space for abundance to come in and the value of just giving things away (instead of hosting a garage sale).
• Divine Decluttering E-course (a new session starts September 28) from the lovely Goddess Leonie and wise Lisa
• Bite the Candy and Never on a Sunday teleseminars with Cairene MacDonald of Third Hand Works
• The book, Simple Abundance, by Sarah Ban Breathnach
• A personal organizing consult with Roberta Schnieder of Organized Essentials
• Understanding how I work and process through the Kolbe-A Index. (I learned I need to see what I have; otherwise I forget.)
• And, last but not least, a lot of personal energetic healing and development work. I've found that as I've released old baggage emotionally and energetically, I'm freed up to be in a freer space around my stuff, too.

And two recent finds that inspired me from this past week:

• Marisa's (of Creative Thursday) blog post on living A Simple Life (found thanks to the always inspiring Christine Mason Miller, aka Swirly Girl.)
• Zen Habits Leo Babauta's new ebook, A Simple Guide to a Minimalist's Life.

Tell me, what resources have helped you to weed out the clutter from your life or mind?

P.S. My mom is still in ICU and continues to heal. She is more alert and showing signs of improving. It's still very much a practice for me in being present and trusting in the unfolding, each and every day.

P.P.S. Due to a technical glitch, a blank version of this post went out earlier today. I've since removed the post. Sorry for any confusion.

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Flowering Fridays is a weekly look at flowers through the lens of what they might teach us about flowering fully in our life. Past editions are here.