As I was pulling weeds in the garden this morning, I thought about how that activity is a wonderful reflection on life. These are the lessons of my garden, the gift of a moment to be without distraction. We cannot always know what is best for us: I have planted many things that I wanted to grow and sometimes they do exactly as I had hoped, while other times, those plants have minds of their own. They travel far astray of where I placed them, not out of spite but out of a will to survive. Their new homes are nothing I would have imagined for them but there they are in all their glory. We receive gifts all the time, though we may not know it: Sometimes I see new flowers, ones that birds, the wind, or squirrels have seeded. I can move them, remove them or leave them where they have been placed. In all these choices, they are still unexpected gifts worth my wonderment. All that glitters is not gold: I also have flowers that have become overgrown with weeds, nasty invasive things that sometimes look quite lovely in their own way but I know they will just choke and take over the “real” plants. On occasion I’ve allowed those pretty weeds to grow but I have always been sorry I did as each year they take more and more of my time. Rid yourself of that which stifles you: Some of my flowers are dwarfed, stifled by the weeds that have been allowed to tower over them for too long. Removing those allows the light to find the plants that need it. We can become lazy if we rely on others to help us stand: Some of the flowers that dwarfed also had companions that were strong enough to find their way through the weeds, seeking out a chink between the weeds to find the light. But sadly these flowers never had to stand on their own. They relied on the throng of weeds surrounding them so that when those weeds were removed, they were weak, bent and broken. Some will make it now on their own, they will learn that they must stand strong. Others will wither and die. And in some cases, I had to leave the support weeds. This means that next year, I will have to cull those weeds and the ones they give birth to. In weeding my garden on this holiday weekend, I am mindful of how we must cultivate the beauty in our lives, how it is all around us but not an entitlement. Beauty, prosperity, love— they all require something of us in order to thrive. They require our vigilance, our respect, our time. I am also reminded that we may need to rely on others and at the same time we must learn to stand on our own. And that the nasty things in life sometimes come fully clothed and lovely but if we allow them to remain they will take over. Nature has so much to teach us.