Mother Soil

Tending the Garden, Tending the Gardener

There has been a calling to my garden over the last 12 years of my life. Ironically it’s almost the exact time I became a mother. Little did I know that I as I mothered these three little girls, this very soil I worked season after season would mother me. Here I am in my 13th season of gardening and mothering and I am finding some words to share. My hope is that it is a bit of wisdom and inspiration for you to find your own sources of nourishment, pleasure, creativity, mothering, and aliveness in the life cycle happening right outside your own home.

After over a decade of planting, pruning, watering, weeding, seeding, and loving on the soil, I am realizing that in reality, this little garden was loving on me. My hands needed tending, my eyes needed to learn the process of growth, my ears needed the birdsong, my skin needed the perfect spring temperatures on my skin. My soul needing breathing room and my little 8x4 garden has been a solace for my very own soul.

I have been on a long integration journey of understanding who am I, the work I have been gifted to do in this world and the light that is needed to keep planting the healing and freedom seeds necessary to breathe joyously. I was in a sound healing journey today and the garden came to me. She called me directly and reminded me of what good mothering feels like, what joy feels like in my body, and what wisdom she has for me in this season of my story.

Stories have season, the young mother that tended my garden 13 years ago is a very different woman than the one writing to you today. What hasn’t changed is the practice of planting, watering, showing up, weeding, pruning, harvesting, and tending.

» » » The practice is the same, the woman is not « « «

This bed of soil has held my hands, my feet, my eyes, my gaze, my curiosity, my heavy heart, and my dreams. The garden can hold it all friends. The soil was made to hold, compost, and push us forward into the light. It doesn’t need our logic, it wants our soul.

The garden is a good mother. She holds ancient wisdom and gentle places for you to land. If you feel so inspired, maybe you’ll create your own garden and begin to work with this healing practice of mother soil. Maybe you’ll be surprised just how much embodied wisdom and embodied growth you experience in her presence.

And to my surprise, just when I thought I was the only who knew this, my youngest daughter came walking in the door today holding her own little garden. Her own little pot of wisdom and beauty. As I saw her walk in, I realized, she too is a gardener. She too will learn the way of mother soil and her journey has already begun. What a gift to rest in the provision all around us and all around our children.

This is generational healing.

This is embodied healing.

This is a House of Healing.

Thank you so much for being here with House of Healing. I hope these words and writings bring breath to your being. For more healing offerings and experiences, visit jennalittle.com

~Jenna