Cultivating your Life through Nature

Retire to something more natural

My pivotal journey brought me closer to my soul by connecting in a therapeutic way to nature. My senior self and all the atrocities of growing older have come to light but have been lightened by walking through the woods, hanging out at the beach and puttering around a garden. The sights, the sound, the smells and the quiet presented to me a huge connection to my well being.

Darkness to light and bright and hope is what I have cultivated through nature. Doctors and healthcare providers tell you to go outside, soak up vitamin D and take advantage of the healing power of nature and it works! Nature does refresh us.

Since retiring, I’ve heard from many people of how nature now plays a bigger part of their life: more time for being outside, walking, hiking, sports, travel, sightseeing, gardening, swimming, looking out the window, feeling the sunshine, getting dirty, going natural. How does it do this? Well, nature provides an escape to the quiet, reprieve from the hustle and bustle of life, and medicines for most of our ailments. Ever thought of fresh air as a cure? Well, watching and seeing nature, observing live creatures, plants, animals, and insects give you the feeling that life goes on no matter what.

Consider this thought. Maybe most gardens are ‘magical’, because they are healing. Also consider the fact that a garden is not just plants, but a whole art and science experience of space and life. Plants appear not only in nature but play a huge part in literature, culture, home, romance, classic and modern.

After much thought, I have compared this healing to a mother’s love. I have come to the conclusion that you can never underestimate the power and love of a mother. Just like you can never imagine how powerful mother nature is. Just like women do incredible things, so goes mother nature. Mothers are calming, patient and forgiving – everything you expect from nature. Everything we are has been passed down and instilled in us from mainly our mothers, grandmothers, sisters, and female sages.

Mothers, just like mother nature, are natural nurturers, teachers and full of knowledge; cultivators of life, love, growth, and everything beautiful and wonderful.

*Julie Moir Messervy, the same designer of the Toronto Music Garden in collaboration with cellist Yo-Yo-Ma quotes and also describes gardening as mothering, “nothing is more fun than being able to dream up, refine on paper, shepherd into place, and maintain into the future a space that you conceived and birthed. It’s like being a mother.”

Yes, nature brings peace and comfort, and brings food, medicinal remedies for the spirit and sustenance and nature’s garden speaks to us in images of creativity, spirituality, connection, and food the soul. Emotional relationships abound through positive memories and by just plain feeling good. So much so that you are disappointed when you don’t yield a crop, cut flowers die, plants do not make it and how the opposite happens when you do yield a crop, that first red tomato brings a smile to your face, or a bouquet is sent to your door.

Parks, seashores, moss, seedpods, buds, grasses, succulents, foliage, bark, acorns, berries, pine cones, fruits, flowers, herbs and trees nourish the human spirit. Nature supports us.

Gardening is the journey of life, not the end result and gardens are not designed, they are loved.