Not everyone understands when I tell them that stroking up and down the lengths of the swimming pool is a form of meditation. I suspect that even fewer would do so, if I said the same of hacking back the brambles. It is that time of year.
Much of my year in the garden is spent trying to stop things growing too far out of hand, maintaining a kind of order. It is rarely a winning battle.
I remember saying that I wanted a low-maintenance garden. No-one told me that was an oxymoron: that I could have a low-maintenance space OR I could have a garden.
I love to say that I don’t believe in absolute either/or scenarios, that there can be this/and. When it comes to gardens, however, I have to concede defeat. There are two kinds of low-maintenance outdoor spaces and neither of them qualify as gardens. One is the concreted over sterility, an extended patio, with maybe a few pots to ease the harshness of its lines, where all you have to do is pressure-wash once a year. The other is the absolute wilderness where you simply opt to do nothing and let nature take its course.
I would hate the former. And I have seen what happens in this particular space if you adopt the latter. So, I have a garden and have to accept that low-maintenance is a matter of interpretation. I haven’t worked out my own exact definition yet.
In the meantime, we have these skirmishes, my garden and I. I leave it be for a while, and then every now and then I try to impose a little discipline.
It probably works as well with a garden as it would with children. It results in a being that knows its own mind and won’t take much notice of yours but will allow you a little peace now and then because it knows you mean well. Some parts of my garden, perhaps like some children, respond better to my regime than others.
The blackberry bushes and I have an agreement. A truce is enacted every Spring. I try to stay out of their way for the most part, looking forward to the flowers and the bees, and then the fruits which they grant me in exchange for allowing a season of growth. But then as Autumn progresses and all of the fruit have been harvested (by me) or scavenged (by my wild visitors) and some of the stems start to die back, battle recommences. Secateurs and bins at the ready, I advance and start cutting.
I won’t use the word ‘pruning’. There is nothing scientific about this. My aim is simply to cut and cut and cut. Every second or third year, I take all of the growth back to the ground. It is hard and bloody work. Brambles fight back. But we both know I’m doing no harm. They’ll be back in force next year, even if it will be the one after before I can harvest again. The hand I grasp with is reasonably well protected in a leather glove; the cutting hand is bare and will emerge as it would from a fight with an energetic kitten, scratched and pricked and bleeding…but no real harm done.
It doesn’t sound much like meditation, does it?
And yet it is. There is space in these hours of cutting, in which to just be present. To simply think or not think. To notice thoughts that arise and wonder whether or not to follow them. Mostly not.
In formal meditation, I’m told, you simply remember to keep coming back to the breath. In this work, I simply remember to keep coming back to the stems in front of me: which to cut next, and next, and next. Cut from the stem, pull down the errant growth, cut smaller for the roadside-collection garden-waste bin. It’s not waste. It’s fuel or compost. It’s not something I think about in the present moment.
I find a lot of not-thinking time, while cutting.
When I do think, I wonder about the blue tits who live in the holly tree behind the fence, and how much they are disturbed by my pulling down a couple of metres of streamers that have grown up through their branches.
I think about how I can now reach the bird-table again and refill the seed-feeders. Time to start supplement-feeding my garden birds.
I spot the ferns that died and the bindweed that has crept in from somewhere and thrives.
I rediscover the cage I bought to put seed-fat slabs into, but stopped when I worked out how much the rats loved them.
When I find tree stumps, my mind wanders into the truly wild-field-cum-nascent-woodland this was when I took it on, and how and why I could not let it remain so. I think about the outbuildings I had demolished. I think about my place in the story of this place.
Being present in a place, I believe, is not simply about this-moment presence. It is also about locating this moment in the time-line, in the circularity and the linearity, of this place. Like everyone before me, I am also just passing through. I will leave my mark, but my mark will also be erased.
Perhaps being truly present in a place is a request for it to be truly present in you. An invitation to live these few seasons together.
Blackberry bushes are truly present, utterly responsive to the nature of the season. They have soared this year, up into the holly tree, across the ground, over the fence. I am pulling metres of them back from their explorations, cutting them down. In places I am simply cutting off their life support so that they will starve and fall of their own accord in due time. It doesn’t feel harsh, because I know I am not winning.
I am thinking into them that I am grateful for their fruit of this year, much of which is still in my freezer for later sustenance.
I am thinking into them that I admire their tenacity. I am acknowledging that they were here before I came and will be here when I am gone. I imagine them smiling at that. Even as they lash out again, draw blood again, submit (sort of, temporarily) again to the secateurs and the indignity of the hack back. They will outlast me.
We are led to believe that meditation is about the full quietness of mind, the stillness, the absence of thought. I’m not sure. I feel that the purpose of stillness of mind, is to be receptive and to be loose. To be open to whatever thoughts arise, and not to cling to any of them. To catch and then to let go.
In cutting back the hedge for another year, I am accepting (hoping) that it will regrow. I am thoughtful at times, and thought-less at others. I notice what has grown this year and what did not. I wonder what to do about the apple tree. Make a mental note to fill the feeders.
More time passes in which all I think is…nothing…a kind of blank invitation to the future.
I realise that I am still wearing my hoodie. That the weather has cooled enough for me not to want to be bare-armed.
I gather up dead wood and dried grass…and feel it as a cleansing of the ground. I have thought a lot about death and dying this last week, but in the garden that feels less final somehow.
I don’t finish the job. I recognise my limit. And simply decide to stop.
Formal meditation is a matter of discipline, of timed practice. Being present in a garden means that you can stay in the moment for as long as you want, and then leave. The garden will wait for you to return.
