I have always seen my mom at work in her garden. As a child and as an adult. In pictures of before I was born, there was always something growing somewhere, especially roses. She really loves roses. Growing up I did not pay much attention to it, except that I knew that she has always done it. I always thought of myself as “NOT” a plant person. Attentively looking at her tend to her garden sometime last year, one of the few times that I have done so, I took in the scene through new eyes. Usually, I am called to see the blooming flowers and the butterflies and birds they attract, rather than the planting, weeding, pruning process. However, we recently started a business together, selling potted flowering and non-flowering plants (Check us out at @mantrazplantnursery). This led me to really pay attention to the various plants and the process of caring for them. It was now my duty to be knowledgeable of each one because I was appointed head of sales and marketing.

I started to learn their various names and reasons for those names, the wide range of species, their origins, their favoured conditions, and sunlight preferences among many other things. I especially enjoyed taking the time out to learn their healing or spiritual qualities. In the process of doing so, I realized that I was steadily falling in love with plants. I noticed and truly appreciated their beauty as my mom had for years. The more I read, the more intrigued I became. I started recognizing various species of plants wherever I encountered them and as time flew by, I could tell what condition they were in, and whether they were properly located. Due to my knowledge of what each plant liked or needed, I was also able to land a few sales by telling different people what would ‘look good’ in their offices or homes, or even classrooms.

That day, my mom looked especially peaceful walking among her plants in the soft morning light. I had learned from her that it was the best light for plants that could not deal with the hot afternoon sun. It was also the time that quite a few of them opened or raised their flowers or leaves like living satellites. The Purple Shamrock is a great example. I also have witnessed the Barberton Daisy bow and raise its little head according to the sun exposure that it received. It is quite a spectacle that I caught on camera with a timelapse. My mother was watering here and there, weeding unwanted sprouts, closely inspecting the leaves of some, smiling at others, talking to quite a few of them and rearranging a few pots. Then she poured out some water unto the bare ground and started digging. I assumed she was making way to new seeds or cuttings to be planted. She always came home with a plant, a cutting or branch or two in a pot, a box, her hands, her bag, or purse or wherever she could store them after buying or receiving plants she did not go out to get.

We live in the Caribbean where we seemingly experience only two seasons. Dry and Rainy or Hurricane. This was in August. The Middle of summer. We were experiencing record breaking high temperatures, and the earth was baked dry and cracked. Looking at her pour that crystal clear water unto the cakey earth to soften the dirt before attempting to toil it made me remember a verse from a Psalm that I had recently started saying.

She knew that she had to change the texture of the soil before any work could be done with it. It was no use trying to break dry, hardened earth, much less to put anything there and expect it to grow. The plants’ roots were soft and delicate and would never properly root in those conditions. She knew that some work needed to be done before the results she sought after could be achieved, and that it would also take some time.

The Psalm that I am referring to is Psalm 65, where it says

“You drench its furrows and level its ridges. You soften it with showers and bless its crops. You crown the year with your bounty and your carts overflow with abundance”

I smiled to myself when this part of the psalm came to mind and immediately gave thanks to Infinite Spirit for reminding me that I too, needed to be softened to a point where things finally started working for me. I had recently given birth to my first-born baby and was experiencing an overwhelming number of feelings about how good, or bad that was going. I felt judged and criticized excessively and really started to go into my shell. God however, has always been my supply. Whatever I needed at the time I needed it, was sure to be delivered. I have always been grateful for the various chapters in my life’s story; however, I was somewhat stubborn and unforgiving. I am not that way anymore, but I have been for a long time.

It was not until I consciously opened my heart, and mind to what letting go truly meant, that I began to receive a different type of blessing. I had allowed love and compassion to flow through my hardened (as my mom would say but believe me guys, it was never that serious) dry and cracked heart, starting the healing process. This happened when I really started to see the people that I despised, for the hurting individuals that they were.  I would often ask myself why I was being attacked. I think of myself as a good person who was raised with morals and virtues, yet always ended up hurt by someone that I either had to work with, respected, tried to help, or loved.

I saw, in my mind’s eye that morning, that I needed to be altered in order to open and release a different, deeper kind of love. It was a painful process but it led me to my evolution that I am so proud of today. Along with my healing, I learned that working with other people, still in their dormant stages may require a little time to allow them to soften, before they can be ready to accept and nurture the seeds of their destiny. Not everyone is ready to see what you are tying to show them. Some people need more time than others. There were plants that repeatedly died despite the careful actions that my mom I took, to ensure their survival.  

On one occasion, I was going through my external hard drive that I have had for a few years. On it there were hundreds and hundreds of photos inclusive of what we call “our mother plants” in their very early stages. They were four to five times smaller. They had been loved and cared for by their wonderful florist for quite some time, and so became magnificent specimens of impressive sizes. So too, when we rely on the Infinite Spirit, our florist, shall we grow and bloom.

In the right conditions, those same roots that may have seemed too fragile and delicate to be planted without softening the soil first, will grow into massive trees that can uproot walls, streets and even buildings. My mom spoke to those plants as if they were people, and she was convinced that they heard and understood her. It did not surprise me because I read an article on the power of vibrations. Both negative and positive. It’s where you speak positive words to one water source, and negative to the other, and use them to water two separate plants. This process is repeated for about two weeks. The results are supposed to yield that the plant watered with the negatively charged water is supposed to wilt, fade, and die, while the other watered with the positively charged water is supposed to flourish and thrive. This proves the vibratory power of words, and though my mom thinks that my tarot reading may be a bit witchy, I dare say, she was a bit so herself, literally speaking love and life into her leafy babies.

Since that day, I have become even more active in the planting and caring process of the plants that my mom and I sell. I have learned to transfer and repot, to cut and trim, which ones to water from the bottom pan, and which can tolerate the extreme sunlight all day. The variegated versions of some of our species made me see how we too react, look, and feel different with varying conditions. The leaves would go from green to yellow and eventually white, with various levels of exposed sunlight.

There are some that struggle, and eventually they either breakthrough or die. Each time that she finds a plant dead in its pot, it is like she goes through a mini heartbreak. The ones that impress me the most are those that seems to have died but resprout a few days later, stronger, and more beautiful than ever. I almost emptied the dirt out of a few plant bags when my mom stopped me and said” No. There are plants in there. They seem dead but they are going to shoot up again. Just you wait and see.”

Sure enough, within a week or two, new stems and leaves shot through and surfaced.

You see, like plants, we may be down for a while, but with the right people around,  patience, love and understanding of how truly resilient we are, we can be given the chance to revive and eventually thrive despite appearances. Maybe we need to be away from the peering eyes of the world in order to properly ground, then grow. Constantly being watched may ruin our experiences and lead us to be cut off because our process is not understood. I was honoured to learn just how alike humans are to plants and still to this day, continue to work on myself to become my best version. 

I once again thank the Universe for the lessons learnt while caring for these plants, and the therapy that the dirt brings. What are you planting in your mental, spiritual and emotional garden?

Sincerely, a now “green-thumb” Island Girl.