Lessons from the garden hose :)

As I care for my gardens in the hot-hot-hot of this summer, my garden hose is teaching me about working in cooperation with the flow of life. For instance:

• One little crimp in the hose can completely stop the flow. When we get knotted up about something--the way he said that, what she did, what I wished I had instead--the flow of peace in our life gets damned up while we fret and stew about whatever issue has temporarily crimped us.
• The best way to uncrimp the flow is to move the hose *in the direction of* the crimp. This seems important to me because when I have a problem in life I sometimes resist it or ignore it or try in some way to negate it (by pushing the other direction). When I push the hose in the direction of the crimp, I am accepting the situation and putting my energy and focus where it needs to go to solve the problem, and the crimp releases easily and the flow continues unobstructed, almost like it's cooperating with me. Ahhh.
• Crimping builds up pressure which will need to come out sometime. Sometimes when I move the sprinkler from one spot to another, I temporarily stop the water flow by folding the hose in on itself. But then, after I put the hose down and release the crimp, the water flows with twice the energy it had before it was damned up, which usually means I get wet. I can see that in my life, keeping energy, faith, love, honesty, and trust *flowing* is much better and healthier for me than saving it up, moving it around, judging where to let it out. That creates a kind of unnatural pressure that may cause it to gush out with abandon when that's not what I intended. I think an even, natural flow, with no damning, is a beautiful thing.

Happy watering today! :)

Katherine