Pruning

Little known fact about me: I get an inordinate amount of joy from hacking away at my garden.  I'd like to say that I feel remorseful or at least reluctant to plant my knees in the cool, soft dirt and cut, cut, cut...but I don't.  My pruning shears are my favorite gardening tool.  (Actually, I don't own pruning shears because it's always seemed like a job that can be done just as well with scissors.  Which it is, and I do.  So stated correctly, scissors are my favorite gardening tool - and I wield them with vicious delight.)

 However, I'm not completely void of compassion for my victims.   If you were to spy on me as I kneel amongst my front garden flora, you would notice my lips very subtly moving as I work.  And if you leaned in, strained your ears a bit, you might even catch a few softly spoken words here and there...

"...I'm not going to lie, this is gonna hurt.....you'll probably lose bits that you thought were important.....parts you liked....parts you aren't ready to let go of....but please trust me, I know what I'm doing... soon you'll be flowering in all the right places....yes, you're going to have beautiful blossoms and you'll be grateful that I cut as I did, I promise.... for now you'll just have to take my word for it but soon you will see for yourself... just be patient..."

As I comfort my plants during this painful pruning process, I'm often seized by the impulse to metaphorically turn the scissors on myself.  There is much of my internal self that I'd like to cut away and how nice it would be to do it just as simply.  A little flash of steel - snip snap here, snip snap there, and voila!  A perfectly groomed me ready to burst into bloom.  Oh, if only it were that easy.

To my plants my pruning method may seem wild and wicked, but there is a loving judiciousness behind it; a grand design.  Over the years I've developed the ability to swiftly identify the dying and expedite it away from the healthy.  I don't even hesitate when cutting decay and I pleasure in tossing the offending fronds in the bin.  Why then is it so difficult to get rid of the elements in my own life that I know are hurting me?  Why can't I prune myself with the same confidence given to my garden?

There's more delicate work to be done as well.  The shaping, the grooming. Possession of clear vision is all that allows a gardener to slice into the living in the name of preservation. It is a graceful artistry, requiring both deep forethought and honed ruthlessness as one skillfully dictates which foliage to exile (despite their apparent beauty) and which remains.   Because it's not the brown, lifeless leaves that make you pause before you cut.  Oh no.  That's the easy part.  It is getting rid of the seemingly healthy for the good of the whole that's truly courageous.   Throwing the treasure overboard to prevent the ship from sinking.  Hacking off a viable limb to keep the disease from spreading.  That's the kind of internal pruning that takes sick amounts of bravery.  Sick amounts.
 

 

Am I up to the task?  My garden is crowded, over-grown, in desperate need of pruning.  There are things, habits, even people that need to be hacked and tossed, either to get rid of the rot or simply make room for the right things.   It's time to cut away all that is holding me down, holding me back, keeping the blooms from coming forth.  

I can already tell it's gonna hurt like hell.

But I have the very best Gardener.  He knows me through, loves me fully and is the only one that can see ahead and determine what I need and what I don't.  He waits patiently for me to listen to his soft, subtle whispering..."you can trust me, I know what I'm doing... soon you'll be flowering in the most unlikely places..."