• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Home Garden Companion

Ilona's Garden Journal




  • Plant Library On The Journal
  • Garden chores
    • Do as I say
  • Ilona’s Garden Home
    • Old House Blog
  • Privacy Policy
Home » Reconnecting With The Earth

Reconnecting With The Earth

February 11, 2013 by Ilona Erwin

Reconnecting with the earth is something a gardener does every year.  There is a necessary time of dormancy in wintertime which is exacerbated for Northern gardeners like myself.

That time of absence from the work of the garden, even from the presence of nature itself is something of a disconnection with time and season.

As if I am suspended in the world of my own making, with artificial light and heat, and so covered with layers of clothing that I am even somewhat disconnected with my own body.  Making my plans, centering on my own goals.

Somehow apart.

Some years I create connections in some of the ways we who garden try to circumvent winter: caring for houseplants, forcing bulbs, starting our seedlings; but never making that true, deep reconnection.

Not until we thrust our hands into the mellowed soil of our gardens do we seem to make the link between ourselves and the earth once again. Rich earth warmed in springtime sunshine, readied by our own labors for a new growing season. It is then that we have made the transferal from one season to another.

It reminds me of other reconnections, those of our important relationships, in which we make contact in the march of time.

For all our reconstructions of meeting with electronic means, nothing is as good a ground as personal rendezvous, whether a simple date for coffee or a planned reunion to strengthen family ties.

Sometimes we need to touch.

Spring opens the ground for us to participate once again in the partnership of regrowth.

We accept the invitation to lend our hands to nature and imprint our own love of her on mellow earth. We look for future reward of harvest, or visions of beauty, but it is the reconnection that begins to nourish our souls in ways that nothing else seems able.

Our strained concepts of art and music cannot truly compete with the power of the natural world to speak to us, absorb our sorrows, or magnify our joys.

Maybe because the reconnection with the soil is simpler, more primal, and more easily understood.

I wonder if our ideas of music and art have not been diminished by the alienation of our society from the rudimentary labors of such things as growing a tomato or a flower.

I would submit the idea that reconnecting with the earth gives our minds and senses a sharpened ability to appreciate other more abstract things.
Farmer's Strong, Work Toughened Hands Planting in the Garden by Ed Clark

Perhaps that is reaching too far, embellishing what is, itself, a satisfying meal for the soul.

It is February, as we still have weeks of winter yet to pass, but there is something of spring in the air, and I am anticipating the day when the warmth of the sun soaks into my garden.

The fragrance of an awakening season will invite me to sink my hands into the dirt, turning up its contents in readiness for the seeds I will expectantly pat into its furrows.

And I will again reconnect.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ // ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
© 2012 written for Ilona’s Garden Journal by Ilona E. An excellent blog.

Filed Under: spring, The Garden Effect : Soul Tagged With: earth, musings, reconnection

~~~~

DISCLOSURE: I may be an affiliate for products that I recommend. If you purchase those items through my links I will earn a commission. You will not pay more when buying a product through my link. Thank you, in advance for your support! Privacy Policy

Reader Interactions

Primary Sidebar

Oh, hi there!

I was a garden blog pioneer, and began writing on this blog in 2003. Before that I had begun a garden website that has been at its own domain since 2006, Ilona's Garden.

I still love writing, gardening, and art after all these years, although travel and grandchildren have become a big part of my life, now.

Standouts

Do You Grow Herbs? 10 Reasons To Love Them

There are so many ways to enjoy herb plants, that they are not for herb gardens only. Think about tucking them into the landscape, into containers or into your home. I do I enjoy thee? Oh, Herb, Let me count the ways! 10 Ways I Enjoy Herbs (and you can, too!) In companion plantings, herbs […]

10 Cool Season Annual Flowers To Plant

Shirley poppies and Bachelor Buttons Not every garden writer alerts you to the fact that annuals can have seasons that are shorter than other choices. For places like Ohio which have hot summers, there are common annuals that only do well when our weather is cooler, such as in early summer. Those flowers sort of […]

Newest Postings Here

  • February Gardening, Last of Winter in the Flower Garden
  • Compilation of Past Mini-Posts of 2003
  • Wayback in Ilona Garden Time
  • 3 Tips For Landscaping Successfully With Ornamental Trees
  • Mid-Ohio Gardening Update

Finding your way home via the garden path


Read reviews from the GardenLibarian

Visit For A Spell

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Youtube
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Google +
  • Wanelo

Portrait of a Gardener

gardener musings
Musings

What’s Wrong With Today’s Gardening?

Modern gardening
What Is Wrong?

Go Fresh

Garden Journal

fine garden journal
Journal, Planner and Log Book

People’s Choice

1910 garden plan

3 Tips For Landscaping Successfully With Ornamental Trees

posted in Landscape Design Know-How, Landscape Trees

Garden update

Mid-Ohio Gardening Update

posted in 2018, How's the weather?

All Season Garden Color with Bold Foliage Effects, Masterful Contrasts

posted in Garden design ideas, Landscape Design Know-How

saving money

Moneysaving Tips for Gardeners

posted in do as I say, Frugal Tips, gardening tips



Bonsai Trees

Stay updated!

Get all the latest tasty goodness straight to your inbox!

Footer

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries RSS
  • Comments RSS
  • WordPress.org

Privacy, Etc.

Privacy Policy|Disclosure Policy

All rights reserved to their respective authors : Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Linking and using material attributed to the author is encouraged, ask for permission to use photos, please.

Copyright © 2019 · Genesis Sample on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in