I’m sure there are those who garden as a great stress-reliever, as a creative endeavor, a joyful project to pour your free-time and heart into.

Not me.

To me, gardening is a necessary but mostly stressful task I find difficult, unpleasant, and downright confounding on a daily basis.

Nevertheless, it is the road I must travel, for I have held a singular vision in my heart—a glorious explosion of paradise; a sanctuary for birds, butterflies, bees and other pollinators as well as unseen beings of the Otherworld; a home and source of food for small animals; a powerful and healing repository of medicine for the magical, spiritual, and ceremonial needs of myself and my community; a center of peace, beauty, and inspiration;

So I very much appreciate and love a garden. Most days I dreamily stroll through its circular rows and spirals, or sit in meditation and attune to the subtle vibrations of the beings that are part of it.

And I am fully committed to its thriving harmony and profusion of growth. So much so, I have spent the better part of three years building the soil in our main temple garden. Adding cardboard and leaves and cover crop each fall. Because I understand the power of soil, and know that without it, a healthful garden does not exist.

But I don’t really enjoy the process itself. Nor does it come naturally to me.

Most people find this seeming incongruence about me baffling. Because of my long-standing relationship with nature and the spirit realms of Gaia, they are often shocked to learn of my garden struggles.

To add insult to injury, my mother has always been an exquisite and active gardener. As a little girl, I often accompanied her every spring to procure loads of flowers. Then I’d spend long spring and summer days in our backyard in Chicago alongside her while she dug and planted, walking around with my watering can, giving the flowers a drink once in the ground.

My mother was also a very eccentric gardener. She’d throw some random plant she’d never grown before in the ground, having no idea about its growing habits, and it would grow. Sometimes plants died too. But she never let that discourage her.

To her, the garden was a grand experiment of untamed beauty. She rarely followed the rules, never planting in rows, nor did she seem to like the flowers everyone else adored—no roses, except for that one bush that came with the house; no daffodils; and we only had tulips because I begged her one year to let me plant some bulbs.

Of course, a few common varieties like impatiens or begonias might find their way in sparingly, but for the most part, her garden was one of outcasts, bandits and black sheep.

In either case, because of all this, when my partner and I moved into our current home, I was eager to get a garden started. There are six, mostly forested acres, but there is quite a large swath of open space, in mostly full sun, begging to be planted.

When I gazed out at the space, I saw so much potential! In my mind’s eye materialized a wild garden of magic and wonder. But I had no idea how on earth I was going to create it.

To date, DIYing it is painfully slow-going. I’ve made a ton of mistakes.

And before you tell me there are no mistakes, let me just say that when an action I take sets me back months, I consider that a mistake.

Of course, we learn from our mistakes. Each time I’m a little further along than I was before. Each year we have a few more perennials in the ground. This spring I can see that three of the four fruit trees we planted several years ago are taking off. But the garden struggle is real.

At first, I considered my gardening ineptitude to be connected to my aversion to the bug who shall not be named (have you read my memoir—where I recount the story of this past-life trauma resulting in present-day phobia).

A few years ago, a close friend discovered my garden challenges. Once her initial shock wore off, she asked me how it could be that I am so connected to faery and don’t feel connected to gardening.

Finally, the answer was so clear, gleaming from within my chest:

I am a daughter of wild places.

The wind, waters, earth, fire flow through me in untamed laughter and delight. I dance within forests and scramble over ancient boulders; my spirit soars in prairies and romps in meadows. But it’s more than that—the forests are in me. The mycelia sing my internal energy pathways into connection with the old growth roots of sacred groves and faery glens.

Cultivation, on the other hand, while I have great respect for its art and science, is a foreign creature to me. The way some people admire and greatly enjoy a delicious, well-prepared meal, but don’t want to get near a kitchen or a stove, this is how I feel about cultivated spaces. I admire their harmonious beauty, but I don’t understand them, nor do I know what to do when I am faced with creating one.

But something Becca Piastrelli recently said in an email really rings true: “When new things (particularly ones that involve working with your hands) get hard, remind yourself that there is no urgency in remembering the old ways and that these things take time.”

 It made me then reflect on all the skills I do have and what I am good at.

And you know what?

Success and mastery of any one of these did not happen overnight.

And it’s not because it’s not “meant to be.” I’m no longer telling myself the false story that if it were, then I’d be good at it, and it’d be easy.

It’s just because the times we’re living in are different. Most of us have been really far-removed from these skills or as Becca Piastrelli so aptly put it, “You can’t hack your way to master status of ancestral knowledge.”

So I’m wondering if there’s some sacred skill or creative endeavor you’ve been working on, but it is not coming as easily, perfectly, beautifully, or naturally to you as you imagined or hoped.

For a lot of people in my circles, the skill they struggle with most is tapping into their deep soul magic, intuition and connection with the Otherworld of Spirit.

Students, clients, friends, and colleagues often look at me and think I have always been “super-connected,” psychic, and easily able to engage with the subtle forces of Earth and Sky.

But it has been a lifelong journey and devotion, one that has required thousands of hours of practice, listening, “getting it not-so-accurately” then having to clarify and hone my perceptions. I recount some of these long years of ups and downs and everything in between in my newly released memoir: Initiation: My Faery Soul Awakening. 

So let’s give ourselves a break, shall we?

Walking the Medicine Path of Beauty and Enchantment is a way of living that takes time. Success and mastery take time, effort, and patience. Relationship, whether it be with another human, the Earth, or a being of the Otherworld takes time to cultivate.

Here’s to going slow. Especially during Eclipse season, which we are just barely on the other side of.

In gratitude for the journey,

Diomira Rose