I love to garden however our soil is awful. It is dense clay and rocky with thick tangles of tree roots running everywhere. Just digging a hole for a shrub is backbreaking work. So after years of losing battles, I took a step back and made a new plan. Now my yard is made up of little areas of garden.

There’s a daylily bed on the slope by the deck, a cluster of flowering lilacs and spirea by one wall, vegetables in raised beds, pots of herbs. And there is my piece of heaven on earth, my little fish pond. Its story is a whole post unto itself and I promise to tell that story soon. I grow my favorite annuals like nasturtiums, snapdragons, and coleus in pots too. Roses however have eluded all attempts to find a spot where they can thrive, except for one. The small white rose bush which was planted with the ashes of our first born child, a son named Zachary. He was stillborn. I do not feel grief anymore for what might have been. I am grateful my beautiful daughters have an older brother to watch over them from Heaven. I have always been inclined to believe in angels. I have met some face to face, encounters so powerful I gratefully relinquished doubt just like I surrendered to the true and unchanging nature of our land.  So I placed a garden angel by Zach’s rose bush. One fierce winter storm sent an ice chunk down from the trees and sheared off her wing. The broken wing protected Zach’s bush from being crushed by the ice. In the spring, knowing Zach’s ashes have long since become part of the bush, I moved the roses to a sheltered corner by our deck.   I was unable to repair the angel’s wing. I wasn’t sure what to do but I could never throw her away. She is still beautiful and still an angel. I realized she is us, for we are like angels with broken wings. If we keep faith in ourselves, then we too can fulfill our mission in life, broken wings and all. At times in my life when I most need them, angels are there to keep faith for me until I am strong enough to fly again. My friends and fellow members of the Bedlam Farm Group may or may not know it, but we are angels for each other. The profoundly beautiful artwork, heartfelt stories, uplifting humor bring inspiration and healing every moment of every day. We wake up to new images sunsets from members in other hemispheres and send them our sunrises. We are spreading spirit and light around the globe. We have come together to heal and uplift each other our hearts so we may soar with the joy of creativity. Everyday we learn to fly once more.

 Blessings be!