"What Has Been Brought From the Garden?" Painting

My abstract work is my outlet for processing my experience as a woman, mother, and trauma survivor and all the emotions and narratives that get wrapped up in that experience. In a lot of ways, I think gardening is an appropriate metaphor for the healing process. I think we often view healing as a destination, like after so many years of therapy you will arrive at “healed”, or you will be awarded a certificate declaring the work as “completed”, but healing is much more like a garden. Healing, like a garden, requires regular weeding, pruning, and maintenance, and sometimes the soil needs additional nutrients in order for the plants to thrive, but the main thing that both healing and gardening require is attention. What Has Been Brought From the Garden? Wise or not, I walk to my garden barefoot The earth, though warm, is cool on my feet Compared to the thickness of southern summer heat. The garden, neglected, is wild, surviving, I step on a spiky weed. Thick, overgrown, dogged, resistant, Overripe vegetables now rotten, Patterned, combative, protective, unrelenting, Untamed, untended, A tangled mess. What can be brought from this garden? Wise or not, I garden without gloves, Pulling the weeds with my hands and The plants bite back. Fibers of stems stabbing through my skin, A familiar pain creeping in while I Untangle knots of vines. There is a core of rot in the garden. Digging, purging, ripping, tearing, Crying, chopping, cutting, remembering, exhuming, scraping, digging, hoeing, There is a violence to birthing that many don't see. There is so much rot in the garden. Wise or not, I lay in the dirt, Mixing tears and sweat into mud, Painting my face with pigment of the earth, I’ve lived through many wars. Amending, nurturing, restoring, repairing, Regretting, forgiving, wishing for forgetting, But knowing that learning comes from remembering, What has been wrought from the garden?