Mindfulness Garden Games
by Joann Calabrese
author of Growing Mindful

Re-Discovering Lupini Beans

New Moon Greetings, March 29, 2025 Re-Discovering Lupini Beans During my childhood, we often had lupini beans in the house. They were different from any other beans my mother used in cooking. First of all they were flat and round, resembling little yellow beach stones. But the other difference was that my mother never made … Read more

Your Circle of Influence

 New Moon Greetings – February 27, 2025 Circle of Influence in the Garden  As an organic gardener, I am happy to accommodate a healthy mix of insects in the garden. The beneficial predators usually take care of the destructive insects. However, each summer, my Denver garden is overrun with Japanese Beetles. They are voracious insects … Read more

Wikipedia as a Community Garden

Calendula

New Moon Blessings – January 29, 2025 Wikipedia as a Community Garden Are you someone who routinely uses Wikipedia for information? It is the 7th most popular website in the world, so there is a good chance you are. But do you realize how different it is from other websites?  Wikipedia’s purpose is to be a widely accessible … Read more

Invitation to Qi Energy

New Moon and New Year Blessings – December 30, 2024 An Invitation to Practice Qigong Are you looking to strengthen your resilience for 2025?  Then consider tapping into your qi energy. The practice of qigong works with the flow of qi energy (the universal life force) in and around our bodies. It invites us to … Read more

Solstice Blessings 2024

The Sun Returns  (a republishing of a 2019 Solstice blog) Winter Solstice happens at 2:20 AM Mountain Time on Saturday, December 21, 2024.  That’s the moment the earth’s northern hemisphere stops tilting away from the sun and begins to tilt back as it continues its journey around our fiery star. Solstice is about light and … Read more

A Path through the Dark Times

Greetings at the New Moon – December 1, 2024 Finding a Path Forward in the Darkest of Times It is winter in the northern hemisphere, and daylight morphs into darkness earlier and earlier. Sunset here in Denver is around 4:30 PM. Winter always brings less light, but this year the darkness is more than the … Read more

The Resilient Thread

The Resilient Thread

New Moon Greetings – November 1, 2024 The Resilient Thread Let me start with this reminder – you are stronger and more resilient than you know. Even though the world feels a little out of control right now, I am here to tell you that whatever happens next, we can and will get through it. … Read more

Gather, Appreciate, & Release

Garden Veggie Pizza gather the harvest

New Moon Greetings – October 2, 2024 Gather, Appreciate, & Release Fall is a busy time for gardeners. Depending on the size of your garden it can be hard to keep up with the harvest. And we also have to be concerned about the first frost. In Denver our average first frost date is October … Read more

In Praise of Burdock

New Moon Greetings – September 2, 2024 On Burdock  Perhaps your only exposure to burdock (Arctium lappa) is when the sticky burrs get stuck on your dogs coat or your clothes. This is the time of year that is likely to happen. It can be frustrating because the burrs are definately hard to remove. But … Read more

Chaos Gardening

New Moon Greetings – August 4, 2024 I’ve always joked that my style of gardening should be called chaos gardening. Springtime plans quickly turn unwieldy, leading to a backyard awash in shapes, colors, fruits, flowers, and vegetables in no discernable order. And that is how it has always been. So, I was delighted to find … Read more