Gone Gardening

Facebook makes you sad. Gardening makes you happy. If you don’t believe me check out this recent report from the BBC, which seems to show that if you spend too much time looking at Facebook you won’t feel good about yourself.

But smell the roses or pull up a few weeds and you’ll feel better. Gardening can lower your blood pressure reduce stress and boost your brainpower. ‘Even just looking at a garden can give you a positive boost,’ says one article.

Gardening can feed your family, improve the environment and surround you with beauty. What’s not to like? So before I grab a trowel (I know what’s good for me) I want to thank Wendy Moore for sharing this poem Relax from Like a Beggar by Ellen Bass, especially this extract:

There’s a Buddhist story of a woman chased by a tiger. 

When she comes to a cliff, she sees a sturdy vine 

and climbs half way down. But there’s also a tiger below.

And two mice–one white, one black–scurry out 

and begin to gnaw at the vine. At this point

 she notices a wild strawberry growing from a crevice. 

She looks up, down, at the mice. 

Then she eats the strawberry.

So here’s the view, the breeze, the pulse 

in your throat. Your wallet will be stolen, you’ll get fat, 

slip on the bathroom tiles of a foreign hotel 

and crack your hip. You’ll be lonely. 