Mindfulness with Passion
Gardening is a Mindful Practice
I have practised various approaches to mindfulness for over thirty years. I also have ADHD and PTSD. Finding ways of taking my mindfulness into my daily life was easier than forming a formal sitting routine. My ADHD can’t do routines. I know. I’ve tried for the last 70 yrs. So many years ago I looked around my life to see what I could convert. That is when I realised I already had a deep mindfulness practice in my passions.
Writing and gardening are my two life passions (not person-centred ones of course — they are different). In this essay I shall focus on gardening but writing is part of it too. Writing about a year in my garden will be my 16th Book to be published, hopefully next year.
I’m lucky, I live in a rural setting where largish gardens are possible, and I only buy properties which have enough land to create something. Not always possible but my husband buys the house and I buy the gardens. We have been in our present house for the last seven years and the garden has transformed massively, from a totally mown and pruned desert of grass with a monoculture of weed trees, into a richly planted and varied ecosystem and diversity supportive range of features. These include flowering plants for early pollinators, and in fact all year round pollinators, many log piles and naturally rotting…
