Presents in the summer

How do you tend the wild garden?

This same question revisiting on cue every year
like the wildflowers that grow wherever I've left them to stretch towards the sun
untouched from the blades of machinery and violence...

How do you cultivate the wildness?
The backtracking towards that happiness you've held while you were five...
maybe at seven, at three...at a time when you were life in it's fullest...
How do you reclaim your throne in joy?

Like a garden we pull out the weeds...
(and no, not the dandelions they've tricked you into culling... those beautiful drops of sunshine)
we uproot that which suffocates our soul's light.
We loosen the stranglehold of the soil and let air in.
We remove the boulders, the rocks, the harsh grit that quells our thriving.
We take out what we do not want to harvest.
Like items that cause frustration. Jobs that leave us bared raw with anguish.
People that lie, cheat, steal, or claim rights to your heart, mind...
We leave those behind, take them out.
    Often needing to weed more than once, friends... more than once...
  
We cultivate that which we aim to harvest.
The good pieces of something.
The friends we love, but never call or meet up with because we are too busy...
    we get with them, we make the time...it is the only time.
We add in the things we love that uphold us...
   the music, the movement, the rhythm, the paint, the books, the exploring, the tiny boxes...
We make room for better, for the joy to take root.
We tend to these things like we tend to our children.
Be present. Weed out your garden, help your crops flourish.
Be present.
Be present.

We water...we tend...
And for those wildflowers...the piece of life that give us surprises and beauty..
we don't mow the tall grasses...we allow them to grow in their area all by their selves.
Because life gives, without your control and perfectionism...
Let the grass grow, let the wildflowers grow...
Yeah, it will look chaotic and four feet tall for awhile...
but then the colors...the blooms....the petals...the wildlife...the truth and the meanings...
reveal all that they always are... present...

Cultivate happiness.
And allow room for the surprises.

And be brave about it...
the neighbors won't like that you aren't going to mow the yard until June...
but if their buzz cut grass is what they want to cultivate, let them..
We grow wild here...
and we are unafraid...
because we grow happiness and life and chaos and beauty...
and we can back it up with proof...
We have patience to let the wildflowers grow.
We have discipline to weed and water.
We have presence to help our harvests fruit...