My small but elegant perennial garden lines the walkway from my door to the garage. Before it met my friend Boung Lim, it was just an oddly shaped piece of ground between the wall and the walkway surrounding the small parking access area.

Not ugly so much as just plain. Dried out, vastly overgrown and littered by the frequent shifting winds swirling among the giant firs surrounding me here in the lowest of the foothills of the Cascade Mountains.  it just reeked of abandonment.

It hit me one day shortly after moving in that the site was too valuable to just bloom more weeds.
With one phone call, my friend, a half ton of the finest potting soil to replace three excavated feet of basic construction waste mixed with clay, a hand selected, unique and ever so colorful perennials, a deep drink of gentle water to encourage feeding and growth and viola’, an ever changing painting of living, vibrant colors, a constant and instant reminder of how things really work in the universe or in your own business.

It is as simple as it is complex: “As ye sow, so verily shall ye reap”. 

Even with a threatening downpour I had to walk awhile and think about what I had just learned. Again there it was, the nurturing way  it actually works. 

And that stroll turned into a very long, rainy walk, just thinking about all our clients in our garden and about how long we have walked stages across the earth extolling audiences with the power of nurturing. We even used gardening  metaphors  as our natural proof and illustrations.
And yet, as I thought about those who became as addicted to the very concept of nurturing as I did , I came to realize that  I, myself ‘nurtured’ only sporadically.

A resolution I plan to keep. Jim