Shamanic Gardening

I’m making up for very sparse blogging the past month in otherwise unusable time chunks set aside for various repairs and upgrades. Today it was five new, matching locks on three doors. Because we bought an older house, the locksmith wasn’t sure how long it would take, but now I have some extra time before I get busy again with sessions.

As the locksmith left, I felt called to plant some of the potted up strawberries into the existing groundcover in front of our porch. After watering them in, I second guessed myself, wondering if that would encourage mice too close to the house. I had in my Amazon queue another 100 gallon Big Bag Bed and some fake snakes that supposedly help to repel mice and possibly groundhogs. I put some veggie burgers in our air fryer, went outside to harvest a little lettuce, and what suddenly appeared at our threshold?!

A garter snake: “Reporting for duty.” This was similar to when a praying mantis appeared out of nowhere right after I put out a mental call for one in Goshen. One early evening, I got a telepathic and insistent message: “Go out on the porch.” I did, then heard, “Turn on the light.” I did and heard two taps on the porch window. Sure enough, a praying mantis was tapping on the window, and I heard clearly in my mind, “Reporting for duty, ma’am!” Then, he was off to chase mosquitoes. Similarly, today, this snake appeared out of nowhere, but synchronously right before I planned to order the fake snakes. I didn’t even know we had snakes here.

After my heart slowed down, I realized this snake was on its own schedule. This little guy was not leaving the threshold. At first I thought it would block my entrance, perhaps indefinitely, but then I realized something else was going on. The locksmith had inquired about two flower orgone pucks located on either side of our front door, inside. I explained that a friend had made them and they “shift the energy.”

The locksmith said, “Oh, I just asked, because I see people from all walks of life. Sometimes people put things by the door to protect the threshhold.”

I said, “Yeah, that’s why they’re there. I have foo dogs, too, but they’re in the hall closet. My husband thought they looked funny outside here.” He laughed and I added, “I guess I’m a little superstitious, but it’s worked well for me.”

He then proceeded to ask if I was the resident artist: “I love your painted doors. I’m a lock guy!” He was the coolest locksmith I’ve ever met.

Anyway, right after he left, I planted the strawberries, had a concern flash across my mind about mice, put in the veggie burgers, got out my laptop to order my garden supplies, and went back outside to harvest lettuce, at which point, the snake appeared. It slithered at the base of each external door we’d just had re-keyed, and then shimmied up the side of each door towards the new doorknobs. The movements were deliberate, and I got the sense it was blessing our thresholds, telling me not to worry about the garden, the foundation of the house, or these entry points.

“I’m the real deal, reporting for duty. You don’t need a fake snake. I’m the real deal.” Once I acknowledged that message, the snake immediately slithered away.

Just prior to all of this, a friend had sent me an email, “How are you doing with the state of your yard, worked out a deal with the critters to let you garden in peace?” When I had answered him, I was still trying to work out the balance of not attracting the wrong sort of attention to our front yard, while finding balance with the known groundhog situation out back. Groundhogs who so far, have done nothing but eat clover and make a mess of our shed before we got here. I want not to be their favorite backyard, but also not to make things so inhospitable that they dig new tunnels, especially not along our foundation to my front yard garden beds.

I had come up with a new plan, but I wasn’t certain it would work. The snake seemed to affirm that we are all in harmony here. I can plant as I feel led, and despite all the complex considerations, I can rest easier that I do have both seen and unseen support here.

I thought of all the other times animals have appeared right after I’ve called them — wasps, bees, hawks, owls, pelicans, praying mantis, eagles, osprey, ladybugs, possums, and more. I thought of the plants that have appeared overnight right after I thought, “I’d really love to have ___ in our yard,” and of having needed to learn in Goshen how to cloak my thoughts if I ever considered moving or removing a plant or tree, lest I walk out the next morning to find it dead. I thought of when the Elementals helped me bring much needed and miraculous rain during the 2012 drought in Madison.

I thought of my 2013 walk in the Goshen woods, in which I told the faeries, “OK, I’ll create a huge garden for you, but if you want that garden, then I need mulch and lots of it. For free.” Not even two minutes later, I left the woods, and what was barreling down the street towards me? A tree service truck, filled to the brim with mulch.

“Do you ever make home deliveries?” I asked.

“Hmmm, I suppose I could do that depending on where you live. You’ll save me from having to pay to dump it.”

“About a half mile from here.”

“Race you there,” he said.

Thus began the first of about 16 full mulch loads over the years, plus the contagious front yard wood mulch “Back to Eden” gardening that increased to 13 delivery addresses in Goshen by the time we left town four years later.

It’s a strange life, but it’s the life I live. Of course, we never have any total guarantees, but it would seem I’m covered for the new plan I’ve envisioned for our yard.

I can walk to all the amenities I need here, or walk 11 minutes to catch a bus downtown. We’re pretty urban. But last evening, I walked the other way. It’s wild here! As dusk approached, it was loud! Not with cars or trucks, but with bird song, squirrels, crows cawing, critters large and small rustling in the deep woods adjacent some people’s yards. As I turned back towards home, another woman walked the opposite way, carrying home bags of groceries, and we just smiled at each other. Big, exhuberant grins amidst the noisy calls of Nature.

I don’t know what the future holds, but I sure enjoy this present!