I’m out the door early this morning to weed my newly planted garden.  It’s a very humid day, with low-hanging foggy clouds after a night of rain and lighting.  This day is soggy and gloomy, reminiscent of the fog of depression.

I tell myself that this kind of day actually may seem dreary, but it has its advantages.  It’s not hot or sunny, and there is little chance of getting too much sun!  I will not need much sunblock on my skin today, and it won’t be stifling hot. 

The vivid green of the grass and trees owes itself to lots of rain this season, and that’s very beautiful.  There are many flowers, too, because of rainy days like these.

As I head out to the garden, I realize that the weeds will be easily plucked from the soil.  The night showers have freed their hold; their roots wet, perfectly loose and ripe for easy removal.  Weeds choke the plants I’ve planted; they rob them of nutrients and secrete chemicals that kill everything around them.  

Weeds are kind of like the torrent of stray thoughts that sometimes invade my mind, preventing my main purpose and action.  Filling my mind up with useless ideas and fears.  Choking good intentions with stray thoughts of what I “should” be or do, or what went wrong, or feelings of inferiority, or negativity without any connection to reality  – all stray thoughts due to weedy expectations, unrealistic goals and past emotional misfortunes.

So as I weed my garden and clean out the life-sucking burdock, Johnson grass, dandylions, and I don’t know what it’s called strangler – freeing up the main purpose, the lettuces, carrots and broccoli – I will also free my mind of its mental and emotional weeds: the “I Can’t,” the “I’m flawed,” and the “Oh my God fear of what’s to come.”

As Emerson once said, “there’s no wound a garden trowel won’t heal.”