I love the hero’s journey as outlined by Joseph Campbell – it informs so much of how we move through life. Our gardening is a crucial part of that. Here are the ways I see a hero’s journey moving through our gardening year – along with corresponding yoga poses, of course. A few fandom examples are here!
1. Call to action
March: First flowers, shocking pastel bursts forth, tiny tender leaves emerge. Curled, tiny, and perfect, like babies’ toes. Forsythia, periwinkle, peach, magnolia.: Downward Dog
2. Meeting a mentor
April: In charges a rainbow of flowers with taut ballerina poise. Tulips, fritillaria, phlox, lily of the valley, pussy willow fireworks teach us style. Ferns unfurl. Cherry laurel flowers come up and out go bushy ball flowers of maple leaf viburnum.: Cat pose
May: The fancy and the frilly make their fashionable entrance, the iris, the allium, the columbine, hydrangea, azalea, and coral bells.: Dancer Pose
3. Allies and enemies
June: Sown seeds are proper plants. Poppies, nasturtium join bleeding heart, bee balm, veronica, spirea, fox gloves, liles!!, clematis, baptisa, roses, guara, A galleria showcase of oddities of shapes, spots, stripes, and stalks. And with it: friends and foes in the insect world.
4. An ordeal
July: Eruptions from plants in strange places: hosta flowers, carrot flowers, squash flowers, cone flowers, gladiolus. Then cleome, hibiscus, canna lilies, black eyed susan, bright zinnias!, honeysuckle. A sort of mania sets in with a dizzy array of plants you planted and plants you didn’t and bugs crawling over it all.: Warrior II
5. A reward
August: Sunflowers soar! Liriope, balloon flower, butterfly bush, toad lily, liatris spicata spikes, blue salvia below. Butterflies, praying mantis, caterpillars everywhere. Confident come the hardy blooms of late-summer, with bold colors assured of their place in the landscape. And with them: fruity bulges! Pregnant plants are laden amidst the chaos.: Goddess Pose
6. Something is Amiss
September: Sedum flowers, morning glory, false dragonhead, phlox, cosmos, catmint, dragon’s breath, snapdragon – all sway in an unexpected cool breeze. The oldest (wisest?) leaves drop their green. Wandering, you see withering. Something is amiss in the riot of life.: Triangle Pose
October: The end is nigh but the hardy are bold. Shasta daisies, mums, and geraniums, defiantly join the decorative gourds. Fall crocus and camellias prance in like party guests who came too late. And all the while the canopy of color, rich and sudden but a bit less with every gust of wind.: Reverse Warrior
7. A resurrection
November: The canopy is now a carpet, settling speck by speck into earth. Brown becomes the garden. With life’s crazy in the past, small packages are sent to the future: time capsules formed with last year’s genetic code. Seeds fly, scatter, stick, all in a desperate rush to make it elsewhere. They go to bed in the blanket of the year’s chlorophyll.: Happy Baby
December: Wrapped up in bright red packages, berries spike the brown and gray. Prickly coneflowers jut out in black shards. Late dropping willow oaks and dawn redwoods cling on, sometimes until the year’s bitter end. The chill seals the settling in.: Head to Knee
8. Taking the change home
January: Lichen green, soft brown multitude of trunks, shiny green southern magnolias and holly, soft brushy eastern white pines, pansies, dried hydrangea bunches, tight firm buds steeled against cold. Brown husks and spent seed boxes.: Savasana
February: A peeking, a poking, a tentative blush on buds. Stirrings of little pinker, greener, and a richer lush brown. Each green bud a synecdoche of life.: Child’s Pose
Thoughts...?!