Nature Speaks: The Great Wheel turns as life begins again in the garden

Seed organizing box
Photo by Jennifer Rotermund

The Great Wheel Turns as Life Begins Again in the Garden

by Jennifer Rotermund

"Often when you think you're at the end of something, you're at the beginning of something else." - Mister Rogers

I find January to be a difficult month to get through. The holiday season - which I celebrate from the Autumn Equinox through the end of the calendar year - is over and people take down their candles and twinkle lights, despite the fact that it's still dark and cold outside.

Since our local Flower and Garden Show takes place in February, and the first veggies (peas) can be planted in February, I admit that I tend to look at January as the month that stands in the way of the beginning of gardening season. I’ve been conditioned to see the passage of time as linear - a never-ending progression of past, present and future.

Red Flowering Currant,
already thick with sweeping buds
Photo by Jennifer Rotermund

Indigenous societies viewed time, instead, as circular. The Ancient Druids of Europe, as well as most Native American tribes, historically referred to the changing seasons as the "turning of the wheel."

In that belief system, Winter metaphorically represented the end of life, but also transitioned forward - through dormancy and the first stirring of new seeds - into a gradual re-birth with the inevitable turning of the seasonal wheel.

Spring represented early childhood, dawn and new beginnings. Thus, physical death never truly meant "the end" of the life cycle. Tibetan and Mongolian cultures, in fact, believe that those who have passed away are often reborn in the next generation.

In the Northwest garden, January marks the final depths of dormancy. We spend more time indoors, we comb through new seed catalogs, we allow Mother Earth to lie fallow, and we make plans for new beginnings. We dream grand, gardening dreams! But if you observe closely, you will see that the new tree buds are already beginning to swell. January is the time of the seed - the essence of the potential for life - yet already starting to stir with the turning of the great wheel of time.

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Jennifer Rotermund is the owner of Gaiaceous Gardens (an urban farming and wildlife gardening business with a teaching garden/urban farm and certified wildlife habitat/ sanctuary located in Shoreline). She is a Permaculture Designer, is certified by the National Wildlife Federation as a Habitat Steward and serves as a Docent at the Kruckeberg Garden. She is also an ordained minister with a particular focus on earth-based forms of spirituality.