Gardens and Grief

In this episode, Lisa reflects on the surprising parallels between gardening and grieving and what her first sprouting bell pepper seeds taught her about wholeness.

Drawing on the wisdom of "lazy gardener" Ann (a Tennessee gardener Lisa has been learning from), she explores how plants grow more robust root systems when they're stripped back, not in spite of the loss but because of it.

The metaphor opens into a deeper meditation on grief as a force that disrupts unnatural patterns, breaks hearts open the way seeds must crack to sprout, and ultimately humanizes us by returning us to our interconnectedness with each other and the world.

Lisa also shares a vulnerable personal discovery: a pattern of reaching for old comforts (specifically, food) whenever she steps into a new, more visible identity.

She offers a gentle practice she's been working with — pausing for just two minutes in the moments she'd normally leave herself — as a way of honoring the tender in-between space where one self is dying and another is emerging.

Join Lisa as she invites listeners to consider their own questions: Where do your losses connect to your root system?

If grief is love, how is that true in your life?

For Further Reflection:

What connections do you see between human and heal, between being humanized and being made whole? Where in your own life have those words pointed to the same thing?

Think of a time you were stripped of something precious. Looking back now, can you see where new roots grew? What in you became more connected, more alive, because of that loss — not in spite of it?

If grief is love, where is that true in your life right now? What are you grieving that you wouldn't grieve if you didn't love?

Lisa describes catching herself at the refrigerator and saying, this is where I normally leave; I'm going to stay with you for two minutes. Where in your own life do you tend to leave yourself? What might it look like to stay, just briefly, just gently?

Is there a new identity sprouting in you right now — something tender, unfamiliar, not yet stable? What would it mean to tend it the way you'd tend a seedling: a little water, not too much sun, patience with how small it still looks?