Finding a quiet time to reflect can be a lot simpler than you may think. Read about one way to reach tranquilty.

Reflections on the Quiet Center of Life

When one has so many hobbies that are very rewarding to the heart and soul, where does an individual begin to spin their tales of glory and comfort? Writing has been the first and foremost center of my universe. I am constantly thinking about new plots and situations that my characters can get them selves into, whether traumatic or dramatic then asking how are they going to handle the precise situation. Life can be pretty tough for some of them!

A person with a large variety of creative hobbies can get lost in each and everyone of them. When my weary eyes tire from the computer, I usually roll up my sleeves and venture out to my rock gardens that are situated on each side of my two acres of rolling hill that extends into a lush forest. Here the flowers as well as the weeds speak to me through their scents. The excitement of going out in the earliest light of day that brings on the extra visual display of the mist…the thick kind that clings close to the ground so you see not the rolling hills, the pond, nor the babbling brook but you hear an d smell your surroundings. It feels as though one were in Ireland. There’s stillness in the air…then you suddenly hear the screeching of a hawk. You now barely see her full spread wings and tilted body as she swoops down towards the pond in prospects of a fresh breakfast. The sun is about to edge its way through the thinning mist, yet as you look around the birds are fluttering out of their trees in search of their mate or just to investigate. A fresh breeze of honeysuckle blows off the pond and across the garden, not only scattering scents but also memories.

"MOM’S GARDEN" ornamentally marks a magical looking area that is surrounded by guards of dark lavender to pastel pink mums. Sprinkled throughout the well groomed garden are dark purple and yellow pansies that appear to eye your every move and signal to the snapdragons so they can announce your presence. A variety of hostas are placed along the inner aspects of the stone walkway and they graciously welcome you as you would enter their world.

During the year a wee fella assists me in planting and replacing the rock. When re-rocking, we go to the back of the property and using a old paint-chipped wheel bare, we haul many rocks ranging from palm to boulder size. The rocks…whether pale pink, palest orange, rust, or gray are intricately placed around the parameter to expand our magical garden…all fit together as if pieces of a majestic puzzle.

In the middle of the garden resides a two person sitting sandstone…it reminds one of the type of stones that were used to build homes, walls, or castles centuries ago in Ireland. The area is shaded by the twenty or more weeping willows that have a constant flow of leaves gracing the ground. The surrounding floor of the garden is made up of tiny pale purple, tan, white, and gray colored pebbles, which span out to make a pathway. The beginning of the path starts from the south going into the magical garden about seven to eight feet where you then must decide which fork of the path to take. A left sided decision will have your senses wide awake with a view of a down hill slope curved to the right. If a right sided decision was made you would stumble upon the sitting stone but your gaze will most likely catch the sight of the heavily treed pond just over the first rolling hill. Continuing along the path it curves softly to the right then veers slightly to the left blending with the other path to make one.

After arguing with the wee fella for several moments as to where the redwood mulch would be disposed of, we decide to rest on the sitting stone in the middle of the garden and sip on our potion of lemonade. We smile at each other then laugh loudly as we notice how grubby we are. Sitting in the quietness as we rest our weary bones we could hear the chorus of bull frogs and the splashing of the fish. We talk about how the land around us had been years before and how much we had changed it…made it into our magical garden so that now we could reflect on just about anything in the quietness.

© HCD