Lemon Balm

For the past year I’ve been studying herbalism. I like herbs. You can eat them and they won’t kill you (but be careful, because there are some plants that look like edible herbs that CAN kill you if eaten). Lots of herbs have amazing properties that sooth and heal. Herbs are nice. My teacher (via Zoom, of course), Dara Saville, is a big proponent of Lemon Balm. It is credited with calming the nerves and easing ruminating thoughts. While planning this year’s backyard planting I chose to focus on medicinal plants and herbs, including Lemon Balm. I drew a very rough diagram of my backyard’s planting areas and noted what I planted where. That was on April 1st. Some things have sprouted (sprouting makes me happy), but some things have not. The Lemon Balm has not. My granddaughter, who loves to give helpful advice told me, “You must have done something wrong.” Maybe, but maybe not. I realized when I sat down to write today’s blog, that God is protecting one of my sources of inspiration: ruminating thoughts.

My thoughts bounce and swirl around in my mind landing where they will. I wipe them up with my hand and with a flick of my wrist, fling them across the page. SPLAT! Because I think in images I have many analogies for my ruminating thought process. It’s like riding a bucking bronco. It’s like a superball in a racketball court. It’s like a leaf in a wind storm. Sometimes I kind of like it, but at other times I don’t. That’s how ruminating thoughts work.

I still wish my Lemon Balm (and Thyme, and a half a dozen other things that I planted, but that haven’t sprouted) would grow. It makes a yummy iced tea, and while I don’t reject that ruminating thoughts can have some merit, they’re pretty annoying at three in the morning.

Today’s quote on my day-at-a-time calendar was, “A good teacher tells you where to look, but not what to see.” It wasn’t credited to anyone. My mind doesn’t tell me where to look, but it tells me to see twenty different things in interpretation of each thing my gaze lands upon. It’s how I’m able to come up with something (granted, not necessarily something worth reading) to write every Friday. I like writing, so this makes me happy. Life is good.