Mindfulness Garden Games
by Joann Calabrese
author of Growing Mindful

Dependability – Mindfulness Focus Words

      Cosmos flowers, blooming everywhere in my yard, are the inspiration for this week’s mindfulness focus – dependability. Cosmos are annual flowers that blooms in mid to late summer.  They grow easily and are at home in a wide range of soils.(1) They self seed, meaning they will plant themselves again for the next … Read more

Self Care – This Week’s Mindfulness Focus

  Self Care is the mindfulness focus for the week. In observing the garden, it’s obvious  that plants have an internal wisdom about what they need and how to get it, even though they can’t move about. (I do like to imagine when we’re not looking that they do move about like the Ents in … Read more

Small Miracles – Mindfulness Focus Words

      I returned home from Pennsylvania to find my gardens very much alive, in spite of the blazing Denver sun. Thank you to all my wonderful friends and family who were watering.  As I wandered through the gardens, I discovered three tiny pears on my pear tree. And that is  a small miracle. … Read more

Creating Sanctuary – Mindfulness Focus Words

      Grief is like a river. Sometimes it is just meandering, and quietly tugging at your heart.  At other times it is a raging river threatening to capsize the boat. But it seems to me that even in the worst of it, there are places of refuge.  I am so grateful for the … Read more

Courage 2.0 – Reaching Deeper With Mindful Focus

Courage is the mindfulness focus word for the week, inspired by borage (Borago officinalis) in flower throughout my yard.  Even though I’ve worked with courage as a focus word already this year, the borage plants and life events are calling me to revisit the concept. About Borage Borage has a strong association with courage.  According … Read more

Seeing with Child Eyes – Mindfulness Focus This Week

  Challenges of Writing I promised myself at the beginning of the year that I would create a blog post every Sunday, with a focus on gardens and mindfulness.  It has been a positive endeavor for the most part, but the year has been challenging and some posts have been hard to write just because … Read more

Wisdom as Mindfulness Focus

        Wisdom is the mindfulness focus word for the week, inspired by sage ( Salvia officinalis). Sage is flowering now in various places around my yard. The shrubby plant has soft strongly scented leaves and tiny lipped purplish-blue flowers whorled around many stems. It is loved by bees and drought tolerant, making … Read more

Mindfully Seeking Quiet Beauty

      Quiet Beauty is the mindfulness concept for the week, inspired by comfrey (Symphytum officinale).  Comfrey is blooming in my garden right now and it is the kind of plant that most people don’t pay attention to.   The world is a pretty loud and noisy place.  The things that get our attention … Read more

Making Peace with the Messiness of Gardens & Life

        This week’s mindfulness concept was inspired by the irises blooming in my yard.  When I first moved into my Denver home, a friend offered me iris tubers. I was happy to have them and assumed she was simply thinning hers, which needs to be done periodically. But no… she  told me … Read more

Connectedness

    Connectedness is the mindfulness word for the week.  And gardens are an easy place to begin to contemplate connectedness.  There is a constant flowing of energy between plants, soil (earth), air, sun (fire), and rain (water).  They all work in unison to support life on the planet.  And as humans, we are intimately … Read more

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