Mindfulness Garden Games
by Joann Calabrese
author of Growing Mindful

Ancestor Altars

Rosemary for Remembrance

Full Moon Blessings – October 28, 2023 Creating an ancestor altar – a place of remembrance for those who have passed on – could take place anytime during the year. However many spiritual traditions align their remembrance with the end of October and beginning of November. These include the Celtic festival of Samhain resurrected by … Read more

Meditation Basics

New Moon Greetings – October 14, 2023 One of my favorite books on meditation and mindfulness is Eric Harrison’s The Foundations of Mindfulness, How to Cultivate Attention, Good Judgment, and Tranquility. The book is informed by Harrison’s 30 years as a meditation and mindfulness instructor in Australia. He was introduced to meditation in the 1970s … Read more

Quirkiness of Corn

Full Moon Greetings – September 29, 2023 Corn’s Quirky Nature You might not think much about corn (Zea mays or Maize) in your garden or on your plate, but it has fascinating and distinct characteristics from most other plants you grow. First of all, corn is a grain. (The grain family includes plants like wheat, … Read more

Chrysanthemums for Transitions

Full Moon Greetings – August 30, 2023 Herald of Summer Ending Chrysanthemums are fall blooming perennials that announce the fading of summer. Mums (for short) are beautiful and tidy plants that come in a range of shapes and colors from deep orange and yellow to lavender and mauve. Flowers are shape shifters and may resemble … Read more

August Garden Chaos

Happy New Moon – August 16, 2023 The chaos of a typical August garden may make practicing mindfulness in your green space a bit challenging. Plants are producing abundantly and all a bit overgrown, tangling around and into each other. In addition to the usual tending of plants like weeding and watering, most of us … Read more

Gifts of Comfrey

Full Moon Greetings – June 3, 2023 Gifts of Comfrey Comfrey (Symphytum officinale) has just begun to bloom in my garden. But the delicate bluish-purple flowers are easy to miss. Tiny bell shapes hang in clusters under the leaves. You have to look closely to admire them because they are dwarfed by the rest of … Read more

Violets – Small Wonders

Happy Full Moon – May 5, 2023 Delicate Tiny Beauty It is finally spring in Denver and my violets are in bloom. Violet plants flower early in the spring along with tulips and daffodils. But unlike their very showy neighbors, violets have a quieter energy and can be almost invisible. Violets grow naturally in shady areas. … Read more

Earth Day Mindfulness

Happy New Moon  April 20, 2023 Earth Day Mindfulness Earth Day is upon us (Saturday April 22nd) and I wanted to write about Earth Day Mindfulness, but have been challenged by opposing views. Mindfulness is of course paying attention to what IS, not about closing our eyes, and pretending things are okay when they are … Read more

World View, Alphabets, & Gardens

Lavender World View

Happy New Moon – February 20, 2023 Creating Order Judith Flander’s book, A Place for Everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical Order ,is a fascinating read touching on world views and our human need to categorize things. It’s a history of the alphabet, as well as dictionaries, encyclopedias, and the birth of alphabetical order. Until … Read more

Advice from Luna

Blessings at the New Moon – January 21 – 2023 A lion on the Serengeti  My dog Luna is an expert at finding places near the edges of the garden where she can merge with the background and camouflage herself. I have found her nestled in the sunchokes, hidden behind grape vines and in the … Read more

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