Gardening in January!

Today is warm and windy, the usual snow-is-coming winter tease in Colorado. My daughter and I began our garden today! Those of you in zone 5 or cooler will think me daft, but in fact we started seeds that require cold stratification. We planted organic peach and apricot seeds I saved last summer. We also planted perennials in covered recycled plastic pots.

To learn how, check out these articles:

Mother Earth News - Free Fruit Trees

Wintersowing

We planted lots of xeric (drought resistant) flowers like echinacea, columbine, penstemon, and bee balm. I can't wait for the teeny sprouts to come up in a few months. I have a vast spread of mulched yard that needs a good xeriscape garden. Since buying enough seedlings to fill the space would be cost prohibitive, I'm going with winter sowing my perrenials. Easy and fun - and it gave me a much-needed mid-winter boost. It felt so good to dig in the dirt! I'll be ready for the next burst of snow.

New Year's Resolutions About Celebrating Life

I've never been very excited about New Year's Resolutions. The things we're supposed to resolve - lose weight, clean out the garage, get a new job - all point to our deficiencies. They also seem to be markers of ongoing battles, like needing to take better care of oneself and one's world. They need to be ongoing resolutions.

This year I need a pick-me-up, a little marker of my ongoing journey, so I have set a few "resolutions" for myself: to ride my bike more, do yoga every day, to meditate more regularly. All of these are about taking care of myself.

All of these are about celebrating Life. I resolve to honor my body and spirit here on earth right now. Imagine if we celebrated life and turned ourselves more towards positive interaction with the world and Spirit, rather than beating ourselves up about how fat, lazy or whatever we might think ourselves?

If you want to mark this shift into 2009 (which has such a lovely ring to it, doesn't it?), here are few suggestions of resolutions that celebrate life and our place in the universe:

meditate once a day or once a week or three times a week
spend more time in nature
dedicate x hours a week to your art
join a spiritual community
volunteer one hour a week doing something you love
go easy on yourself
invest in green technologies
pray
play


Remember, these are about being kind to ourselves, the earth, and our fellow earthlings.

Want to share your resolutions?