This poem, by Nicolette Sowder, is among my favourites:

The sentiment in this poem is achingly beautiful, for the world needs more kind people who will speak for those without a voice, champion those who need strength, sit with the lonely, and love the unloved things. The future of our planet depends on that to combat the rising tide of greed and the empty culture of more, more, more.

When you garden with your child, you teach them the very values in Sowder’s poem. When you relocate snails away from your lettuce patch (instead of killing them with slug pallets), when you build bug hotels, when you pay attention to leaves that are whispering to you that they are dehydrated/hot/over-watered, you are imbuing something precious in their young, absorbent hearts. And indeed, living in full awareness is a marvellous gift.

This is Girlie, a variegated cheese plant, who is feeling overwhelmed, because we had visitors staying over and lots of young people coming over:

Living in full awareness leads to fuller, more fulfilling inner lives. For example, have you ever walked past a patch of wildflowers and wondered who planted them? Was it council workers, birds or were the seeds carried by the wind? So many people walk straight past some of the most beautiful flowers you’ll ever see on this planet, oblivious to their delicate, natural beauty.

Last weekend, I walked past a stall selling plants. “£1,” the lady said, “It’s a Brahma Kamala.”

As a student of Sanskrit and author of Live Patanjali – Yoga Wisdom for Everyday Living, I am familiar with Brahma, the Hindu god of creation. So for £1, I brought this little plant with an impressive name home and learned something new about this plant, which lit a little light within me as I learned a little bit more about the magical world we live in.

If you are interested in learning how to get children started on gardening, please visit this page: The Handbook for Budding Little Gardeners contain all the know how you need to get started.

If you would like something to read, do consider this book. It is about why unloved things need to be loved.

You can purchase this book from Chelsea Green Publishing. Here’s an article from The Guardian is worth a read. Next time I’m doing a school talk, I’ll definitely bring a slug!

And here’s me relocating snails from my herb box into the compost heap, or sometimes, into the sheep farm where they will have a nice life munching grass with the sheep!

(Main photo used with permission from Creative Commons)