Challenges Build Strength

This morning I had lots of alone time, so I spent some of it in my garden, watering the poor dry plants, picking blackberries and generally gadding about my yard, waiting with hopeful anticipation for a bit of rain.  It was a lovely morning.

One of the last things I did was to trim my lavender.  The driest I have ever seen it, the heads hung, crunchy, on bent stalks, waiting for their resurrection.  I started in with my snippers, grasping large portions of drying leaf and stem, cutting, cutting, cutting.  And oh!  the smell was gorgeous!  Heady lavender aroma inhaled through nostrils, clinging to hands, filling the air.

I am reminded again of the nature of challenges to build strength.  So often, when teaching my herbal students, I remind them that the strongest medicinal plants will be the ones that have had to fight a bit for their place.  Stunted yarrow by the ocean, or clinging to rocks will be superior to well watered and fertilized garden yarrow.

These years we have been challenged.  All years challenge us, depending on which season we are in personally, but these past few years have been doozies!  So I will see how I have been strengthened by these challenges.  Yes, there are times when I feel crunchy dry, head hanging with exhaustion, but maybe my aroma is sweet, or strong or heady or just good, powerful medicine. 

Strength from challenge.  Onward!