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Personal Growth Planet |
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Eco-Uplift Articles Nurture
Yourself by Getting Up Close and Personal With the official start of Spring just around the corner the desire to spend more time outdoors increases for many of us. Whether it's gardening in our own backyards or taking a stroll through the park, when we interact with the Earth, it simply feels good. The fresh air, sun on skin and varied colors emerging from the ground and all around us can be inspiring and uplifting. To enhance that eco-uplift potential, I encourage you to get down and dirty! As the soulful musical group Arrested Development sang, "Dig your hands in the dirt...children play with Earth." And it's not just kids who can benefit from getting up close and personal with the ground we walk on. No matter how old you are and regardless of where you live, you can more closely interact with this wonderful Earth on which we live. Not only do activities like organic gardening enrich the soil, improve air quality, prevent flooding and provide habitats for wildlife, they also benefit us! As you dig, rake, hoe and plant seeds, you are prompted to breathe deeper and release the stresses and other concerns in your life. As you nurture the seeds, pull weeds, water and watch those plants grow, you can feel satisfaction for a job well done and enjoy this symbolism of your own growth and self-nurturing. And, finally, as you eat that home-grown salad, green bean or tomato, it is fresher and somehow tastes better which can inspire your body and soul to sing. You don't have to plant a huge garden either. Container gardening is a wonderful and relatively simple way to provide yourself with fresh veggies. So you see, everybody wins when you dig your hands in the dirt. There are plenty of options and alternatives for playing with Earth in addition to gardening. Composting Some people create their own compost heaps in their backyards, but there are many composting containers that may feel more aesthetically pleasing to you. Some composters are even designed with a handle so that you can turn the mix in the container. I even knew a woman who composted while living in an apartment with no yard. She kept a small composter on her patio and used the "gardener's gold" for house plants. As long as the ratio of greens to browns (nitrogen to carbon) is kept relatively balanced, there is truly no offending odor. An aspect that I truly love about my family's composting practice is knowing that we have a lighter load of outgoing trash and an increase in nutrients that we are able to put directly back into our living space. Vermicomposting Believe it or not, worm poop is a very high quality natural fertilizer. Another way to compost is to vermicompost. This primarily involves keeping worms in a special vermicomposter and feeding them your kitchen scraps. It is a similar process to basic composting, but is more contained and requires different care. But the garden-loving effects are the same. You can even share something like this with your friends and family by hosting a vermicomposting party! A recent newspaper article talked about just that. Move over Mary Kay and Tupperware! These are just a few ways to really get down and, if you choose, dirty. But it really doesn't matter if you merely take a chair outside and sit for a few moments every day. Take off your shoes and let your toes wriggle in the grass. Feel the power and energy of connecting with the aliveness of what's beneath your feet. Watch the changing landscape around you and then feel how your own inner landscape is changing, growing and expanding. We truly are all connected and this includes our planet itself. So why not create some time to play with Earth? Allow yourself to notice the beauty and abundance of the flowers, trees, grass, your garden and even your decomposing compost heap and you will probably also more readily notice the abundance, beauty and richness that is always there within yourself and in other areas of your life. For more on composting
and vermicomposting check out these sites:
http://www.composting101.com/
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