Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

mindfulness

The Spiritual Habit of Digging Dandelions

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Last year, when I heard the honey bee population was suffering from a mysterious insect-world apocalypse, I decided to offer up my lawn for the cause. I would not drown my dandelions in Round Up nor pry them from the earth with a slim forked garden tool. Instead, I vowed, I would let them flourish and propagate in order to provide nectar for the struggling bees. It would be my sacrifice, my contribution to Earth.

This year, come April, I took one look at the blur of yellow blanketing nearly every inch of my front yard and decided bees be damned. Pulling on my gardening gloves, I grabbed the dandelion plucker from the garage and proceeded to rid my lawn of the noxious weed, one bright bloom at a time.

Three days later my front yard was free of dandelions. I also had a raging case of elbow tendonitis (which would later require a cortisone injection that felt a lot like giving birth out of my elbow, but that’s another story).

While I might not recommend my particular OCD approach to dandelion digging (It’s the Upholder in me. As my husband said, “Do you not understand the concept of moderation?” No, in fact, I do not understand the concept of moderation), I do recommend the habit (or discipline, or practice, or whatever you want to call it) of dandelion digging in general, which comes down to this:

Monotonous physical repetition frees the mind and soul to open, breathe, and rest. 

I thought about a lot out there on my knees, scooting from bloom to bloom, pushing the metal prong deep into the moist dirt, wrenching the gnarled, stubborn roots free and tossing them with satisfaction into the metal bin beside me.

I let my mind wander as I listened to the staccato call of the chickadee, the trill of the cardinal, the scamper of the squirrels up the river birch bark. I let my body relax into a rhythm, the cool grass bleeding circles of damp on the knees of my jeans, the plunge and push and pull of my fingernails in the dirt.

Digging dandelions isn’t “spiritual” in the traditional sense. I didn’t pray or ruminate on Bible verses out there on the front lawn. I didn’t do anything, actually (besides dig dandelions). I simply let thoughts come, and then I let them go. I noticed and focused on my environment – the pungent smell of early spring dirt, the fresh scent of new growth high up in the pine boughs, the rise and fall of voices up the street, two neighbors chatting in the morning sun. I let myself be immersed in the sights and sounds and smells of creation, which to me often feels like the best kind of prayer anyway.

It doesn’t need to be dandelion weeding specifically, by the way. Any monotonous, repetitious chore is conducive to this kind of spiritual discipline: folding laundry, washing dishes, raking, Windexing windows, painting the baseboards in your bathroom. The key is to move your body repeatedly and automatically and to let your thoughts come and go.

Try making a habit out of doing your most monotonous chores mindfully. Eventually, you’ll find, your to-do list will recede into the background. You’ll breathe more deeply. And your spirit will feel more at ease.

A Word about the Four Tendencies: 
Remember last week when I described Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies? You’ll see, as we dig into these non-traditional spiritual habits over the next few weeks, that some will be more conducive to particular Tendencies than others.

The spiritual habit of digging dandelions (or doing monotonous chores mindfully), for example, will probably work well for an Upholder (because we respond well to both inner — “Practicing mindfulness will be good for me” —  and outer  — “My neighbors will appreciate a dandelion-free lawn” — expectations) and the Obliger (who feels accountable to others…like the neighbors). If the Questioner is sold on the rationale (“Because I believe doing a repetitive, monotonous chore is a good way to practice mindfulness, which I want to learn”), then digging dandelions (or something similar) might be a good fit. As for the Rebel…well, only the Rebel can decide what will work for him or her!

Tune in next Tuesday for another Spiritual Habits post.

Becoming Mindful in Place: Observations from the Back Patio

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I’ve recently enrolled in an online writing workshop called “Becoming Mindful of Place,” hosted by Tweetspeak. I realize that participating in a writing workshop while researching and writing a 70,000-word book sounds like a completely bonkers decision (and it may turn out to be exactly that), but for some undefinable reason, it felt like something I needed to do. So for the next eight weeks or so I’ll be sharing some of my reflections from the workshop in this space. These posts will likely be a bit different from my ordinary fare, so thank you in advance for your patience and openness as I muse and meander!

 

backpatio3“I’m going to sit outside on the back patio for 45 minutes after supper,” I tell the boys. “It’s for the workshop I’m taking. It’s my first homework assignment.”

I feel the need to explain myself, to legitimize my doing nothing. Rowan rolls his eyes. I suspect he finds my evening plans boring.

“To be a good artist, stillness is something that we should choose and practice,” writes the poet and essayist Chris Yokel. “Seek it out. It’s a vocational requirement.”

Earlier I’d swept the cement pavers and brushed oak seedlings from the metal table and chairs. I’d dipped a sponge into a Tupperware of warm, sudsy water and wiped the table clean of dirt and pollen. I didn’t plan to sit at the table, but I cleaned it nonetheless, knowing the dirt and clutter of debris in my line of vision would distract me from my “vocational” sitting. I know myself. I don’t sit well; ridding my surroundings of distraction is key.

It’s cooler than I expect when I finally slide into my patio chaise lounge after the dishes are done. Inside the house, the day’s heat refuses to succumb to the air conditioner, but outdoors, a breeze lifts the river birch leaves.

A pair of cardinals chitters back and forth like the staccato of an old VW bug. Four squirrels perch high, all on separate branches in the mulberry tree. They look like Amazon monkeys, each nibbling on a berry clasped between two claws, tail hanging limp.

Across the street the neighbor guy whose name I always forget mows his lawn. He’s fastidious – first the mowing, then the edging and trimming, and finally the blower, breezing strands of cut grass from the sidewalk back onto the lawn. I’m strangely soothed by the whine of the mower, quieter as he pushes it around the corner of the house, louder as he plods into view again.

This looking at and seeing my surroundings, without creating the scene into something more than it is or infusing it with a deeper meaning, is hard for me. My brain wants to manufacture meaning rather than simply seeing and appreciating. I find myself looking for something to write about, seeking depth, substance, metaphor. I want to package this backyard experience into a story and tie it all up with a shiny, red bow.

Sit and look, “without bothering to interrogate [your] own response,” Christian McEwen suggests in World Enough and Time. Be patient and wait, she advises, suggesting that often — not always, but often — meaning will arise on its own, without prodding, without manufacturing.

McEwen mentions the sculptor Auguste Rodin and the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, who often sat side by side in Rodin’s garden for hours, not speaking, but instead musing, daydreaming in silence. After one such sitting session, Rilke remembered the sculptor declaring, “We have done a lot of work this morning!”

My backyard sitting feels like work, though I suspect not the creative refueling Rodin was referring to. Perhaps I will have to practice; perhaps this new way of seeing doesn’t happen all at once, but with repetition, habit.  Perhaps my brain, so accustomed to the create-on-demand I’ve forced on it for so long, will have to relax into and learn a new way to see.