As the sun sets on a particularly challenging day, have you ever felt the magnetic pull of your garden, urging you to immerse your hands in the earth and let your worries fall away? Christy Purifoy joins us to unravel the intimate tapestry linking the nurturing of gardens to the flourishing of our mental and spiritual wellbeing. Her latest book, "Seed Time and Harvest," is more than a guide—it's an invitation to transform our lives through the rhythms of nature. In our heart-to-heart, we share stories that bloom from the soil of personal Edens, finding peace in practices as diverse as meditation, Tai Chi, and watercolor.
Navigating the landscape of our psyche often means confronting the thorns of anxiety and depression, a journey I share openly, reflecting on a 13-year chapter of trauma therapy and the importance of self-care. Christy and I delve into the importance of allowing others to lend us strength in times of need and the simple yet profound act of gardening as a tool for healing. Her narratives remind us to pause and tend to our inner gardens, drawing a poignant parallel between the flowers on our porches and the state of our souls.
Our conversation blossoms as we discuss life's ever-changing seasons and the divine invitations they extend to us. Christy's profound insights into the cycles of growth and decay in our gardens mirror the ebbs and flows of our existence. As we conclude, I'm thrilled to invite you to continue this exploration at Heartlift Central on Substack and to engage with our community on Instagram. Visit janellrardon.com to connect and support our journey, carrying the inspiration of Christy's stories with you as you cultivate your path to a connected, serene existence.
Begin Your Heartlifter's Journey:
As the sun sets on a particularly challenging day, have you ever felt the magnetic pull of your garden, urging you to immerse your hands in the earth and let your worries fall away? Christy Purifoy joins us to unravel the intimate tapestry linking the nurturing of gardens to the flourishing of our mental and spiritual wellbeing. Her latest book, "Seed Time and Harvest," is more than a guide—it's an invitation to transform our lives through the rhythms of nature. In our heart-to-heart, we share stories that bloom from the soil of personal Edens, finding peace in practices as diverse as meditation, Tai Chi, and watercolor.
Navigating the landscape of our psyche often means confronting the thorns of anxiety and depression, a journey I share openly, reflecting on a 13-year chapter of trauma therapy and the importance of self-care. Christy and I delve into the importance of allowing others to lend us strength in times of need and the simple yet profound act of gardening as a tool for healing. Her narratives remind us to pause and tend to our inner gardens, drawing a poignant parallel between the flowers on our porches and the state of our souls.
Our conversation blossoms as we discuss life's ever-changing seasons and the divine invitations they extend to us. Christy's profound insights into the cycles of growth and decay in our gardens mirror the ebbs and flows of our existence. As we conclude, I'm thrilled to invite you to continue this exploration at Heartlift Central on Substack and to engage with our community on Instagram. Visit janellrardon.com to connect and support our journey, carrying the inspiration of Christy's stories with you as you cultivate your path to a connected, serene existence.
Begin Your Heartlifter's Journey:
A reading from Seed Time and Harvest by Christy Purifoy. Everything is reconciled in a garden Between the first deep freeze of fall and the last deep freeze of spring, while the ground beneath my feet cycles between stone hard and mud melt. I walk the same route through my neighborhood nearly every day During the growing season. I am too busy tending my garden to walk. Occasionally I wander the same path late on a summer evening, but only when I am frustrated with my garden and looking for escape. It is January in Pennsylvania as I write these words.
Speaker 1:I walked my familiar winter route today, a path that carries me over sidewalks, along a public golf course and behind many of the houses built 10 years ago on the farmland that originally gave my old farmhouse its purpose. Behind one of these houses, I am always cheered to see a small raised bed garden, because I mostly walk this way in winter. I have never been sure if the garden is still cultivated Today. It was covered in dead plant material weeds or vegetables, I could not say along with a few rusty tomato cages. Somehow. The sight of it always pleases me more than the neat but sterile landscapes of the homes nearby. These tumble-down raised beds tell me that someone has been involved with this place beyond the minimum we expect of a homeowner. Someone wanted more than lawn grass and shrubs. A longing for Eden, for paradise, is buried deep in every human heart. Some are more aware of paradise lost than others. For these, the weedy and overgrown vegetable beds in a corner of the backyard are not the sign of failure. They first appear to be. Rather, they suggest that someone has listened to her heart. Someone has sought a good and right connection with the natural world. Others may be less aware that anything of importance is missing from their lives. Convinced, they were born with black thumbs, they ignore the houseplants for sale at the supermarket. They pursue only those hobbies. Far removed from green growing life. They are content with a landscape that fulfills the minimum requirements of their homeowners association bylaws. However, gardening is something much more than home maintenance. Gardening is no mere hobby. It is not a pastime intended only to help us pass the time. Gardening is a way of life and as a way of life, it can cure so much that ails us.
Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to today's Heart Lift with Janelle. Oh, my goodness, you're in for such a treat today. I have the beautiful Christy Purifoy, one of our favorite guests here, at least my favorite guest to have on the show. Christy is such a beautiful human being, a luminary as I call her. In the very beginning of this conversation, christy showed up again in my life these past few weeks, right when I needed her. She has a new book out Seed Time and Harvest how Gardens Grow, roots, connection, wholeness and Hope. Beautiful, astounding books. They are coffee table books and Christy has done the photography herself and they're just luscious, I don't know how else to say it. They, oh they just make me exhale stress and inhale beauty and peace and all the things that make my mental health better. I've been talking a lot about forest bathing and I just felt like this was the most beautiful conversation to start May.
Speaker 1:May is all about mental health and we're going to put a lot of focus this May here on the show on grounding, grounding, grounding, rhythms and practices, and I love the quote that Christy talks about by Wendell Berry that says there are no unsacred places. There are only sacred places and desecrated places, and we can see the desecration every day on the news, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And so I am just returning to my own personal Eden, if you say, returning to simple practices like daily meditation, lectio Divina, contemplative prayer, centering prayer, lighting that candle and sitting in a quiet room. A quiet place. A quiet room, a quiet place taking a walk. I just became a member of our local botanical garden. I've signed up for classes that are going to bring more peace into my life looking at bluebirds and learning more about them. I'm signed up for a Tai Chi class. I have signed up for simple watercolor classes. These are things that I've neglected in my life and it is just time to return, and I love the way Christy puts it.
Speaker 1:These are invitations, and so often we dismiss them as unimportant because they seem unproductive, but, as you'll hear in my conversation with Christy, they're actually the most productive thing we can do, and so I understand HeartLifter. This is a shift. This is a shift, but it's a good shift and a necessary shift, and I hope that this conversation brings you as much life as it brought me today. It's coming to you unedited. I have a guest coming in today, so my time and attention will be towards that guest over the next few days, but I will be checking at Heart Lift Central on Substack and at Janelle Rairdon on Instagram and I want to say a huge, huge thank you.
Speaker 1:Wow, did I get a surprise yesterday to new Circle of Trust member Karen? Karen, you took my breath away. Thank you so much for supporting the podcast and the work of Heart Lift International. It truly, truly means the world to me. So here we go. Please welcome Christy to the show. Christy to the show. Christy, I've already said it to you, but you just are luminous. You're a luminary. That's actually what you are. You're a luminary and I'm so happy to have you back today. Thank you for saying yes.
Speaker 2:I was so happy to say yes, it's wonderful to be back and I'm really looking forward to this conversation, and thank you for saying that. I was just writing a piece this morning about how often we choose darkness over light, and so for you to say that, in particular, is just a good reminder for me. Okay, I have been choosing light, go on choosing light, and I think to choose light is to show up and be a light, which my temptation is always to to stay in my own world, to hide, to go out into my garden and just do my own thing. I don't, I don't honestly love showing up, and yet it it that that's what it means to be a light. We can't, we don't hide it. So thank you.
Speaker 1:Well, can we go deeper? Absolutely. I do think I do, and I want to be your neighbor or at least have tea in your garden or something. I mean, uh, introvert.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Introvert, highly sensitive sort of artist type. So I really love going deep in myself and I'm so glad I get to do that through writing and gardening, photography, photography. But I also I'm a mom. I still have quite a few of my kids at home. Actually, this summer I have all four of my kids at home. So life is loud, is loud and full and good, full of blessing.
Speaker 2:Their ages at this being home, my oldest is 20 and my youngest is 11. And I have one graduating from high school this year. So so, yeah, so, no wonder I want to go off on my own and recover. You know, yes, you, you should. And the temptation is to only do that to, just because it's so satisfying to be alone. But at the end of the day, that isn't a fruitful life, even for an introvert. I mean, my alone time matters, but to only choose that is not to choose a life that is flourishing, and I know that, and you reminded me of that. Oh, yes, to be a light means to show up.
Speaker 1:You are a luminary, but you are a luminary. But there are many facets to that, much like there's many facets to a diamond. So I love Daniel 12.3. It's what I live my life by. Those who are wise will shine like the stars in the universe, and those who lead others onto the path, onto the righteous path, will shine like the universe. So I've just studied that deep and wide and keep finding out more and more things.
Speaker 1:So I think, being luminous, being a luminary is right where I'm living, for sure as well. So I'm curious where we can read this article or whatever it is you're writing.
Speaker 2:Is that a?
Speaker 1:next book. Content, or choosing the light over darkness, is what I need right now in my life.
Speaker 2:Yes, well, yeah, so writing these days, it does look like working on another book that we'll be doing the winter. So I but, to be honest, I've started thinking about it. I haven't really started writing it. I'll do that in the fall, but I am also serving these days as writer-in-residence at my church, which, yes, it has been. So Is that a thing? This is exactly what everyone says to me, and I love to bring it up and I love to talk about it because I want people to know that it can be a thing.
Speaker 1:I want it to be a thing.
Speaker 2:I want that right now Like hello, someone out there. So I am writing a lot for my church. So that's what I was working on this morning. I'm writing for our weekly emails or I'm writing for our sort of Sunday wrapper, for our leaflet. I'm writing we're a somewhat bigger church, not a huge church, but a somewhat bigger church so we are able to put out, four times a year, a little printed magazine that I'm writing for and I love writing for my community, my church, and I love that my church is supporting my writing. So it's not volunteer, it's not salaried, but it's a little paid like a stipend, a little paid stipend.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, this is amazing.
Speaker 2:So they are tangibly sort of honoring and supporting my work as a writer. Yes, and it has been the most satisfying writing, I think, of my life. It feels so good to be seen as a writer in my community.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I do think this is a model that I hope more Christian communities will take up, because I think you know not everyone. If you're not in publishing you may not know that you know it is. Publishing as a business can't necessarily, given the market realities of our world, given the fact that we no longer really have bookstores, the business model can't really support it, can't really primarily support excellence in writing. I mean it. They I know wonderful people working in publishing. They're doing their best.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, so do I for sure.
Speaker 2:So much is against them in that and so if we and they will tell you that. Yeah. So if, as Christian communities, we want to nurture new good you know, excellence in writing and if we want to hear from those who may not be celebrities but may have excellence to offer-.
Speaker 1:Oh, you are making chills go from my head to my toes.
Speaker 2:Then a great way to do that is to say, within our communities. Okay, who do we know, who do we see? How can we support them so that they can continue to exercise that gift? And that's what my church is doing for me. And yeah, did they approach you?
Speaker 1:Yes. Yes, Christy, this is just and we get our hands on those magazines. Are they just for the church? They're really just for the church.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm going to move. Yeah, although I will tell you I am. I'm in the process of setting up a sub stack and maybe moving my newsletter audience there, so I think that. Yeah, I think that'll be a place where I will. I will share the church writing. That's appropriate, you know, for a wider audience. I just did that.
Speaker 1:I just make that transition to Substack?
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:I just I mean heartlifters. I've been, you know, sharing with you that we're transitioning and moving and it's a big shift for some people. They're like I don't know how to do it, I don't know what to do. You don't really have to do anything, you just go to Substack, you know. But it's very, it just is lovely. It's a lovely platform. I love all the white space as a writer. I love the ease. It's so easy. I love that. It's I don't know. I just love a whole lot about it.
Speaker 1:My daughter introduced me to it because she's on there as well.
Speaker 2:Dandelion seats.
Speaker 1:I will drop that. And so well, I love that, christy, I love that so much. When you mention and you know, you know, you can always say I'm not going there, I'm not going there. Janelle, but I consider myself a luminary as well. No one would probably ever. Okay, I'm going to just say it. Uh know that I suffer a lot with depression. It's not clinical depression, although I think I have had that, uh, but I just don't present that Right, right, you do you shy?
Speaker 2:Yes and yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean I? I I'm told that by strangers that I meet in cafes or on the streets of New York last December, and I always just go. Thank you God.
Speaker 2:Because I know that.
Speaker 1:I know that. I know it is not my light.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's just not my light and that really proves it, doesn't it? It does.
Speaker 2:Because I know who I am in the dark. Yes, and I would. I would say I'm exactly the same. Um, yes, I too know. Uh, anxiety, depression, um, it runs in my family. It's just, it is a reality in my life as well, and, um, and while I'm grateful that, um, at least in this season, I'm not, you know, completely underneath it, it is a, it is a current that's always there. And, and I think too, you know if you're a sensitive person or a creative person, yeah, you're a little more open to all the awful that is out there Wide open, you know you know we are, and so it is.
Speaker 2:it is a fight. Yes, it is that we fight, you know deep down, but God is good and he meets us there and it is encouraging to realize that also what he does is allow us to go on being lights, to go on being fruitful that he continues to use us, even if we feel and are tangled up in that day's worry or feel useless, invisible, all of the things. Yeah, that's an encouragement.
Speaker 1:It is because it really is joy, it's not happy.
Speaker 1:You know I worked in trauma therapy for the last. I'll be 13 years in June and have recently made a very hard decision to go on sabbatical an author writer sabbatical. I'd love to be a writer-in-residence. You know, very difficult because I am. I can't stand to see people hurting. It just is very hard for me. But I'm hurting and my body is keeping the score and telling me you need to take a sabbatical. And for me, christy, I think that's why you showing up on wherever I mean an Instagram. Somewhere I went oh, christy has a new book. Oh, how timely. You know it was just right on time. And I thought to myself you know, I had a friend tell me years and years ago wow, I don't cry easy, you're bringing this out. When I don't see any geraniums on your front porch, when I don't see any beautiful flowers on your front porch, I know you're too busy.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The depression's hitting, Something's happening, and so one day she showed up at my door with this extremely beautiful, beautiful big planter that she had created because I didn't have any geraniums on my porch. And I looked this week and I was like my porch is empty.
Speaker 2:That's a sign Interesting, wow, and what a gift of a friend. So sometimes, those seasons of not being able to plant our own geraniums, they have that silver lining, that grace, because then we can see a friend in a new light. A friend is able to step in. Yeah, it was a beautiful gesture and meant the world to me, but I've never.
Speaker 1:I mean, that was decades ago, five years maybe. I've never forgotten, like I can tell, the condition of my soul by my front porch.
Speaker 2:Well, and you know, I think that's something I have tried to practice this spring, especially so I've been writing this series of garden inspiration books now for four years. So I started the first one in 2020, which was very good timing, actually. It was interesting timing, it was good. Yeah, the third one just came out, and so it's been a, you know, a somewhat quicker pace.
Speaker 1:Yes, very quick to me. As elegant and as breathtaking as they are, that to me is quick. You've worked really hard. Yes, I have. You've worked really hard.
Speaker 2:And it means that, ironically, sometimes the things we're writing about then we don't have as much time you know to focus on. So this spring I sort of told myself and let myself prioritize gardening as much as I could. So if the weather was nice, I tried to push meetings off to say, nope, this is the day I need to get out there in my garden.
Speaker 2:But I think that is very hard to do, even for someone like me who loves the garden, loves my time alone. When there is work that we show up to do where other people sort of have access to that and know if we're showing up, then I just always want to say it's a kind of people pleasing, I guess.
Speaker 1:It's hard to yeah and it's a it's neglect of self.
Speaker 2:There's no other way to say. It's a kind of people pleasing. I guess it's hard to yeah, and it's it's neglect of self.
Speaker 1:There's no other way to say it. It's like I'm going to put them that this is right where I'm living. Christy, so I get it. It's like I put everybody else in front of my own need and care and soul care Exactly.
Speaker 2:So this spring I have, I've really tried and I think I've, I've, I've mostly done it and it's been good and right to, to consider the garden work that has been kind of long delayed, as, as work I'm meant to do this spring Not a hundred percent of the time, which you know I would love.
Speaker 1:But again you have a full house.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's other other other things, you know, also need me, and yeah, so I, I'm, I'm just grateful that I've been able to do that this spring. I've been healthy enough to do that this spring, yeah, yeah, Because it's it. It's always a practice of like paying attention to the darkness, the pain, the grief, because gardens are full of grief, full of struggle, you know, and our own sort of shadows meet us there. You know, why don't they?
Speaker 1:Yeah, All you got to do is dig deep into that earth and you're like oh, deep hole.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly, it is not.
Speaker 1:I know you well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have. Sometimes I have. You know, very seldom have I heard this, but the you know the negative comments, they are the ones that stick with you, yeah.
Speaker 2:And a few times I've had reviews or comments, you know, about my books, where someone says you know why is she complaining so much? And you know my response to that is, oh, maybe you've only gardened a little bit, but if you really step into a garden there's so much grief waiting for you, so much toil, and yet working through it, whether it's the writing about it or the doing of it and the sharing it is, the reward of that is a kind of hope that is so resilient, that is strong, even when you know things are falling apart or feeling hard. And so that in this third gardening book, that is really what I wanted to get at is that there's a lot to be worried about, you know, when it comes to the earth or just our lives. But, oh my goodness, if we're persistent, if we pay attention and we keep at it, the fruit, the harvest of our garden is really, is really hope. And it's other things, you know. I say it's, you know, give us more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, gardens grow roots.
Speaker 2:Yep, Go ahead, gardens grow connection and wholeness, wholeness I've experienced. But then finally hope, and I would say, like that hope is really the capstone of what I've received in my garden, and so I share that as encouragement too for those who are facing the darkness to not run away from it, but to dig into it a little deeper, those who are facing the darkness to not run away from it, but to to dig into it a little deeper um, to, to, yeah, to walk with God through it is is really the only way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, just wait, wait in it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, this week I finally got to plant. Um, this is the first year because my twin daughter has been uh expressing and doing gardening in her backyard in St Louis and last year we began a dahlia craze.
Speaker 2:And so I didn't even have any geraniums.
Speaker 1:Last year I just had dahlias and I had a lot of things I could cut and put and so I didn't do them from tubers last year. But she did and, oh my goodness, her dahlias were just. I mean, look at this, they just joy.
Speaker 2:Yes, the layer, the layers, the layers, the colors, the blooms. I'm getting chills again.
Speaker 1:I just love flowers, and so I planted them from tubers this year and had to wait until after the first, last freeze here, and so this was the week and I just finished it and I'm, I'm planting and I'm going I don't really know what I'm doing so, I watch a little video and then I'm putting them down. I'm sweating. It's not even that hot out, but it's like I'm just so nervous.
Speaker 1:I'm like come on, babies, you're going to be so lovely, you know, and I'm just, you know, and I was just like cannot wait. I'm like I hope I did this correct. But you know what, if I didn't, it's okay, it's a lesson. But what I wanted to ask, first and foremost, because you start this, let me hold up the book Seed Time and Harvest. I mean, look at that, look at you.
Speaker 1:I love you so much. What a feast. The introduction alone just made me gasp. Actually, Everything is reconciled in a garden. That's a big claim. I know I'm like no, it is a claim, but I think you could not be more right. I just got back from Belgium and I've been speaking on forest bathing because we heard about the ancient Hallerbos forest and the bluebells were blooming and it was a bluebell festival. You know how these things go on, you know, and so we went and it was just so. I thought, you know, I think that is the truest statement ever because I felt different. My autonomic nervous system, my central nervous system, all my nerves, every nerve in my body, every last nerve, calmed down. So everything is reconciled in a garden. Where were you when you got that epiphany?
Speaker 2:I think it was a gradual epiphany. I think it really is. I don't think I could have written this book first. The first book was flowers romance. You know which is where I began, which is that falling in love.
Speaker 1:That's not placeholder, that's garden, because this is the four like coffee table books. So yeah, we had you.
Speaker 2:we've talked about garden maker here, yes, to the world. So it was a very gradual epiphany. So first there's the falling in love and you know, and becoming a gardener and loving flowers, and and that, of course, you know, remains. I still feel that way, but over time, I think, I started to see the rest of the picture. So, yes, to see the rest of the picture. So, yes, the flowers had my attention completely at first, but in time realizing oh, my goodness, the neighbor children are drawn to the flowers and the butterflies and the chickens who are here, and you know, they're a part of the system of the garden. And I just started to feel the all the life that is in and around a garden or or in a place that is being cared for, that's being tended. It isn't just the flowers, especially because I'm not a flower farmer, I'm a, I'm a gardener. So it is this.
Speaker 1:Right, very different. It's slightly different. I now know the difference thanks to the Magnolia Network and shows that are on there. Exactly Right, you know. So it's not about, I mean farming is is to the Magnolia Network and shows that are on there. Exactly right.
Speaker 2:You know. So it's not about. I mean, farming is excellent too, but you know, of course that has the bent toward productivity in a way that you know my gardening doesn't have to have. So, yeah, it's just been the fruit of all this time spent in a garden and the fruit of garden losses.
Speaker 2:So I think I say in the book as well I have planted so much, that is no longer here and that can start to weigh on you if you don't process that, because I've planted so many trees, so many shrubs, so many, and I'm not just talking about the annuals that come and go, I'm talking about things I thought might persist.
Speaker 1:And they didn't.
Speaker 2:And they didn't. So what do I do with that? And then realizing, yet somehow it feels as if all these years of gardening has added up to so much. So what does that mean? And realizing it's all this life, it's the changes in me, but it's just this life. And so now I say in this book, and I love to say, when we grow gardens, we are not really growing plants, we are, but it's so much bigger than that, so much bigger. We're growing beauty and we're growing all these other things I talk about. And so when I talk about reconciliation, to me the garden is maybe the one place. I'm sure there are others, but it's probably because they're also functioning like gardens in some way. But the garden is the one place where just everything that is divided in our lives and our hearts and our world and in the earth gets invited in to connect up with everything else. I think it's no wonder that scripture is a kind of Eden story from beginning to end, like that is not just metaphor, that is real.
Speaker 2:That is what it's actually about and if we think of our lives, you know, as rooted in God's love, in order to be like, to become ourselves, like Eden, and to live that out. And so, yeah, to me again, the garden is not a metaphor. It's not a place of metaphor, although metaphors abound there but it is the most real place where all the parts of my life in the world, the seen and unseen, I will say are invited in to fall into relationship with one another. And so, yeah, in scripture, you know, Christ is presented as this great reconciler. All is being reconciled to Christ, and I felt the truth of that when I started writing this book. But I didn't want to. I quite deliberately don't use religious language in this book, I know, Because it's not it's not necessary.
Speaker 1:It's not. I appreciate that so much. It's not necessary.
Speaker 2:And I didn't want to put up those hurdles for folks, cause it's this, is this wisdom and this goodness should be available to all and and I can trust that if you enter into life in this way, like, you'll meet truth, you'll meet love, and you know, I don't need to put a certain language on it, that is just going to. You know, you think, oh, I've heard that before. I don't even know what that means. Or I've heard that before. I'm done with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you've spoken before about cliches and things, and I so value that because it is right where I'm living again actually.
Speaker 1:You, because it is right where I'm living again, actually Just trying to put away cliche. I mean, god is truth, he is beauty, he is life, he is, and I so appreciate that. So do you feel? I love the Wendell Berry quote that you when you speak. It's not in this book, I can't remember which one it's in About being no unsacred place. There is no unsacred place, and I have been criticized for saying things like walking in the grass is a sacred practice.
Speaker 2:It's a spiritual rhythm.
Speaker 1:You know, being outside Forest bathing is a sacred practice. It's a spiritual rhythm. You know, being outside Forest bathing is a spiritual rhythm.
Speaker 1:You know, I think, what I have come to find out, as I was saying earlier, after really almost 13 years of listening to really, really difficult stories of childhood trauma uh, which I hold in the vault of my heart very dearly, but absorbing that I've seen and learned. Talk therapy is great. Many different EMDR, different things are great. But the more I've studied, the more I've dug deep, the more that I've gone into how can we heal our nervous system? Because that's what it is. It's like I was not born into a calm nervous system. Personally, I was born into my mother's heightened nervous system, so I just took it. I'm an empath, I got it.
Speaker 1:I have verified it with many wise people that that is true and so it's. I've come to the conclusion after all of that that the work that needs to be done is on our nervous system and it's novice research at best Would love to prove it one day. People are proving it, but I do think that gardening, putting your hands in the earth and I know you know where I'm going with this in the earth, I know you know where I'm going with this Because it is connection. I feel like it's an embodiment experience. It is Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Help me out. And we don't. We are not. We are no longer as modern, especially North Americans, and even especially, maybe, religious North Americans. We're all in our head. Reality is all in our head. We think we are not living, you know, very embodied lives. We're doing everything virtually or digitally, and there's goodness in that too. But you know, if the balance has gone too far, you know we have lost that connection. And again this is where I want to say, like Eden, the Eden stories, we have lost that connection. And again, this is where I want to say, like Eden, the Eden stories we have, they're ancient, they're poetic, they're metaphorical and they're real.
Speaker 2:And science is backing it up. You're right, there is science. Even talking about depression, we know from science, now, absolutely, that there is a chemical. And here's the thing, now, absolutely, that there is a chemical. And here's the thing it is not in any kind of dirt out there, but it is in cultivated garden soil, so enriched soil, soil that has had like life added to it, you know, or really death added to it to make it. Yes, for sure.
Speaker 1:Right, Compost all the things.
Speaker 2:Yes, that there is a chemical in there that is directly affects the chemical levels in our brain that are involved in things like anxiety and depression. So if you talk about healing from those kinds of experiences, one part of it must be to reconnect with gardens, with soil. And I think as modern people we just don't want to believe that it's that physical, that it's that embodied. We want it to be something we ascribe to in our heads, or some new idea we get, or some just mental therapy when all along again and you know, taking a burden. That's kind of where I'm at.
Speaker 1:All along, yeah, all along. Let's go take a walk, let's go plant some flowers, instead of sitting in this room for three hours going through your trauma again and again, and again. And I'm just, I'm talk about being criticized, I don't even care. Jesus loved woo-woo. He did, he created it, he loved.
Speaker 2:You know I think, you know, maybe I and I get this, maybe, especially, you know, those who are devoted, you know, to, to their faith. They're afraid that we might be watering it down.
Speaker 1:Great metaphor, yeah, right it is yeah, they're everywhere.
Speaker 2:That we're, that we're somehow making it less.
Speaker 2:Yes, that we're somehow making it less, and really, what I want to do is I want to make it more. I want to say no, no. The truth of scripture, the truth of Christian faith, is not just at this level, it is all the way up, all the way down, all the way around. You find it everywhere, and so what I want to do is make it bigger and bigger, richer, more real, more and more real. The seen and unseen worlds and the lives we live kind of on their boundary. So if we could wrap our heads around that, then maybe it's less scary. So we're not saying you know that the church building is now unimportant, we can go to the forest. We're saying, oh my goodness, no, no.
Speaker 1:We can embrace it all. It's all integrated, it's a process of integration is really what it is, and I think that, in my experience anyway, it's too simple. What do you mean? I just go take a walk. Okay, I don't have a forest around me, but I have a botanical garden around me. I just became a member because I am desperate to just be in that atmosphere. You can say, signing up for lots of different classes I would have never signed up for, and I do feel guilty. I'm like, oh, can I do that? Yes, I can go do a bluebird walk.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh do a bluebird walk.
Speaker 1:Oh, my gosh Bluebird houses. I'm going to learn all about them, you know, but I think, with my clients, particularly who I love dearly, it's like it's it's too simple and actually it requires far greater discipline. Yes, this is back. Help me out, am I?
Speaker 2:right Wrong.
Speaker 1:Yes, it just takes more discipline for me to to go plant plants or go to a botanical garden or actually meditate, sit and breathe my beautiful essential oils that I use in my practice because it feel like I'm doing nothing. Right, and so it's that paradigm shift in the brain.
Speaker 2:It feels unproductive, so unproductive. It feels unproductive, so unproductive when it is actually the wisest approach to time. So, for example, this morning, that's why I'm in my overalls here, my braiding overalls. I would have put mine on had I known. So here we are in late spring, but we've had some kind of wildly warm days, you know, as, yeah, the weather is, you know, is crazy, is You're?
Speaker 1:East Coast, I'm East Coast.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep, yep. So we've had some very warm weather and it's been a little dry, but last night at least here in my home, we had just this very refreshing rain.
Speaker 1:Oh we needed it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we, we needed it. I had prayed for it last night actually.
Speaker 1:Oh good.
Speaker 2:When I heard it last coming our way, so my dahlias are desperate for it. Yes, so this morning the whole world was so fresh and watered and there was, you know, this cool breeze. Because it was morning and I had not planned to do to work in the garden this morning. I knew we would be chatting. I have some deadlines to meet. I was just gonna sit at my computer, but this morning when I realized I knew no you're. You need to just figure out, you need to shift and you need to get out there for this, for at least this first hour of cool morning where everything is just damp and fresh and green and you need to be in that.
Speaker 2:You need to be in that, and not just for the productivity of weeding, which is what I chose to do. But this is where I'm supposed to be and it's like an invitation. But this is where I'm supposed to be and it's like an invitation, and I think God is offering those invitations all the time, but they're so quiet and they're so easy to ignore and I like to think that this morning, in that rain, there was an invitation and that I said yes to it and sitting here now, no regrets. I mean, the day is heating up out there.
Speaker 2:And so later I'll be at my computer doing my work when it's hot when it's hot, but this morning I'm so glad that, um, that I, I went, I said yes and stayed in the place where that was offered, because it isn't always we'll be called into places where it won't smell nice and it won't feel fresh and it won't be that recently watered, you know goodness. And so if we have ignored those things when they're offered or we haven't created habits of regularly returning to that goodness of refreshing and restoring our nervous systems and getting reintegrated, then we will not be yeah, we will not be equipped to be okay when we're in the hardship To do life with four kids in your house, 20 and 11, the youngest.
Speaker 1:I've been there not four, three, I had three, but now I've got the grandkid yesterday called from the ER. She had to get stitches.
Speaker 1:And so it's like there is just the ebb and flow of life's highs and lows, and I think you just beautifully spoke that they are invitations. They're divine invitations and we talk a lot here about the first step to change is always awareness. It's just always going to start there, it's just becoming aware and I think that your book plural, but this book Seed Time and Harvest for sure is a divine invitation. Oh, I hope, so I hope that's exactly what it is, and I hope people, I hope many, say yes.
Speaker 2:They say, oh, I want that. It's not about a perfect picture, it's not about a thing they've seen on Pinterest. It's just an invitation to enter into life more.
Speaker 1:That's something Christy can do, because she's gifted.
Speaker 2:I kill plants. I don't have green fingers. No, no, no.
Speaker 1:You've had garden losses. I learned a new word today Garden losses. But I don't want garden losses with my dahlias, so we need garden victory this year, oh my goodness. And that's a sacred work and it is obviously where God placed his humans to begin life and it is where we will be placed.
Speaker 1:I truly believe in the new heaven and the new earth If we can just close, which, oh, you know, it pains me, it pains me. You have also this incredible line how to change the world. This incredible line how to change the world. You got a lot. You're putting a lot out here how to change the world in three easy steps. Christy Purifoy. I love it. I'm looking at it right now. Okay, read it to me. Do you want to read a little from it?
Speaker 2:Yes, sure, sure, okay. So how to change the world in three easy steps. Step one choose a tree. Admittedly, this is the most difficult step and will likely take the longest. But take your time. Our choice of a tree to plant can alter a place for generations. There is no need to hurry this decision. Step two dig a hole. It is perfectly acceptable to hire out this portion of the task. I recommend asking around for a nine-year-old boy. In my experience, they love to dig holes and ask only to be paid in candy. Step three plant your tree and water it well. Admittedly, even a very tall sapling of the sort that is sold in a large container will not at first appear to change the world very much. In fact, your skinny baby tree in the beginning might be difficult even to see and then jumping ahead. But small trees settle in quickly and in only a handful of years you will have created that precious cooling global commodity. Shade Trees make places, and you know what's interesting as I read that.
Speaker 2:So please don't stop I'll tell you what is happening as I turn to my right, right outside my window. Today I'm up in my third floor office and we have had, in the picture that accompanies that essay. You see these enormous maples that are framing the house. Well, most of those are coming down today. Talk about garden loss. I know, I know they'll be a cry.
Speaker 2:I think there'll be one left for a little while longer, but they are so old and they have declined so much and they're hollow and they're really just a danger and they have very few limbs left. They look impressive but really what's left is one or two large limbs and they're as as the house. They were probably planted between 1880 and 1900 so there is, there is grief. Yeah, there's grief in what I hear. Outside the window, enormous logs I can see right now, but but are you going to take a picture after yes, sunshine?
Speaker 2:will stream in sunshine and new trees will be planted, and I might even plant a meadow down there because there'll be sun for it. So it's, it's, every end is a beginning, and that that it's tree. It's true with trees, it's true in our lives. And so today, you know, I give thanks for, for the hands that planted those trees a hundred years ago, and I'm grateful that I can, I can plant, I can plant trees for, you know, for the future, and um, uh, yes, I think, whether we're planting trees or just paying attention to them, walking in their shade, we are all aiming to live like trees, to live that kind of deeply rooted, fruitful life, and, um, it's good to, it's good to pay attention to the trees.
Speaker 1:They, they, they have much to teach us. So right now they are my teachers and like I, I just all of a sudden it you know how that happens that the teacher appears. They say sage wisdom teachers will appear on your path when you need them, and for me it started in the halibut in belgium, horse bathing, the beach trees oh, with the blue bells.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh, I can I know that you can. You must go one day. I'd love that, oh my goodness. So I had two questions to close. Which part of your garden or which flower is bringing you? Is speaking to you, maybe? The loudest this season this year in your life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think we spoke about the dahlias, and so I will say that I I love dahlias. They bring me so much happiness and grief. You know, when things don't go well.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no, no yes.
Speaker 2:But I have always planted tubers, which means I'm planting known varieties. I kind of know what I'll get and, honestly, for years I didn't know why I would do otherwise. I thought, why, why yes? I didn't know why I would do otherwise. I thought, why, why yes? I didn't understand why I would do otherwise. And this year, somehow, a whimsy has taken hold of me and I plant, I started two huge trays of dahlias from seed, which means I have no idea what they will look like oh my God, yes, I am so excited.
Speaker 1:I can't. Will you please, will you like, take us on the journey? I will, will you?
Speaker 2:Please. I think, oh, my goodness, I planted surprises for myself. I love anticipation, I don't. And so I thought, why didn't I do this sooner? But somehow I just this is the year for me to want to be sort of open-handed in that way and want to just welcome what comes and I'm less attached to the outcome.
Speaker 1:So you didn't know what was in the seed. How do you help this? Yeah, they're dahlias Unlearned. They're dahlias.
Speaker 2:But the thing about dahlia seed is it doesn't grow true to the parent. So they could be any color, any shape. I might find a treasure that I want and then I could keep the tuber if one grows that I really love, and then I can keep it going.
Speaker 1:Oh, you must Please take us on this journey. I am begging.
Speaker 2:So that's a new thing for me and it's just, it's whimsical, it's impractical and I'm so excited about it.
Speaker 1:So I love that and that's bringing you can see it on your face. It's bringing you joy.
Speaker 2:Yes, Maybe the anticipation, the uh, the unexpected is bringing you joy. I love that I've planned my own garden surprise party or something.
Speaker 1:Call it that. We're on it. I'm in. I'm in. I want an invitation. Okay, and second, what do you feel God is planting in your life right now?
Speaker 2:Okay, and second, what do you feel God is planting in your life right now? Hmm, even better question. You know, this whole past year has been about rest for me and slowing down and saying no to things so that there could be more space for listening and resting. But I know that that is in that concentrated form is ending Okay, and so I just feel. So I'm in a transition, I think, and I don't know, but I feel very much that sense of oh, I know what has been and I don't know what is coming around the corner. And I don't know what is coming around the corner, and yet I do sense that God is helping me to hold on to new practices, to things I learned in this year, with more quietness, so that, hopefully, whatever is around the corner.
Speaker 1:Is there one that stood out more that we?
Speaker 2:might be able to adopt. I don't know if this is too general, but this generality has helped me in specific ways. So the general idea that has helped me is to remember that just because I have a good idea, just because I have a vision of something good or beautiful or wonderful, doesn't mean I have to do it. That even God and his creating in the beginning I keep coming back to Genesis even God ceased creating and rested, and we know that he had not run out of ideas.
Speaker 1:We know that that's so good, Christy.
Speaker 2:So if God put a period on some of the ideas and rested, who am I to think that I am not also supposed to do that? And as someone who always can see more, this has been pretty life-changing for me to realize that just because I can see something more doesn't mean that I dive into it at first. In fact, that's the quickest way to just overdo it and to exhaust myself, and that that isn't what God is asking of me.
Speaker 1:Going to striving, yeah, disembodied. In a sense that would be disembodied because you're going out and doing your own thing, for whatever reason, but I think putting a period to a good idea. I've not heard that said yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's been new for me this year. I don't know why it took me almost 50 years to learn, but there we are.
Speaker 1:Hey, I'm 64, so hello.
Speaker 2:It takes time. It takes time. Why does it take time it?
Speaker 1:takes a lifetime is what it takes. It does. I know it does. Oh my goodness, christy, thank you so much for your luminous, beautiful wisdom, your honesty, your authenticity, and it just leads me closer and closer to Christ, and I appreciate that so much.
Speaker 1:So I can't wait for the next book, but in the meantime, just keep planting, digging, and I can't wait to see the surprise party that's going to come. See the surprise party that's going to come. Oh, heartlifter, what a joy to be with you today. This conversation with Christy just brought light into my life and I hope that it did the same for you. Please meet me on Substack at Heartlift Central. That's our online community home base. I would love to have you there. I will be transitioning our newsletter and all the things to Substack at Heart Lift Central, so please meet me there, and always I will continue the conversation on Instagram. That's where I hang out at Janelle Rairdon, so excited for hearing your thoughts. I always love to hear from you and I invite you to become a Circle of Trust member of Heart Lift International supporting the podcast. You can also support the podcast via Substack, and so you can learn all about those things over at JanelleRiordancom. Until next time, I know, go plant a tree, Go put your hands in the earth, just exhale, be blessed.