Sunday, December 27, 2009

Dec. 27 Free Spirit Sensory Therapy gardens



Pictures from Free Spirit gardens 2009

December 27th Don't die with your song still in you

  The babbeling brook sings in all her glory as she winds her way through our Oak and Hickory woods, bubbling over stones set out as if they were music notes wrote by God Himself.  It reminds me of the saying "Don't die with your song still in you"  When I first read that I thought about it a long time.  Wondering what is my song? 
     Nature in its full glory, like when I see my horse Hawk a Morgan,  tear down the hill and race around and around with Moose the Palamino. Their mains flowing in rythm to their pounding hooves on the pasture.  Dust sometimes drifts up when the ground is dry and dormit.  Othertimes as they tear around the curve their hooves will dig in and leave patterns in the slick wet after a long rain.  Enjoying the moment, feeling joy as they use every mussel in their frames which glisten with sweat. They don't think, I can't do this because I am 32 years ( a long time for horses)  or I am overweight because Kate feeds me too much, they just fly to the songs of their hearts for that moment.
     I want that!  I want to do something that makes me feel just like that.  Not a care in the world even if it is just for the moment. 
     Developing Free Spirit Horse Therapy's Sensory Gardens eight years ago gave me that song.  I didn't know a thing about therapy gardens.  But after a winter of research and plans it got on paper.  It all fell in place beating odds that it would fail after numerous bumps in the path of life.  Along with fellow Master Gardeners that volunteered to help and DOCC men, who are inmates at a local prison who are former alcholics or drug addicts.  They came with counslers watching them, us directing them as we worked along with them side by side.  The stone walls slowly came up, the men hauled soil in wheel barrel after wheel barrel to each section.  It was planted also with their help, and a bare acre of ground became a song to be enjoyed by many handicaped kids in wheel chairs, their parents, and other visitors.  Their are eight Master Gardeners maintaining it, and it is funded by our local Master Gardeners group.  Each summer it is replanted with the colores of the rainbow, scents flow out and drift up to be enjoyed by all.  "Enjoyed"  that word carried joy.  That is the song that flows out of our lives.  We joy because we are doing something we love.