A minor perspective shift can make a big change

Some people are gardeners, getting true joy from tending their personal outdoor space.

I am not one of those people. In my family, the love of tending an outdoor space apparently skipped a generation. My dad is an avid gardener, and my son is a PhD candidate in sustainable agriculture.

So when I moved into a house with a large back yard earlier this year, I began to feel guilty about not maintaining the lawn properly. Because that’s what responsible people do. They keep their lawns tidy, with crisp edging and well trimmed flowers. Right?

Then one day as I looked over the large back yard while sipping my early morning coffee, I had an unexpected perspective shift. I realized the back yard was not, in fact, a lawn. It was a meadow.

What’s the difference between a lawn and a meadow?

According to Merriam-Webster, a meadow is “land that is covered or mostly covered with grass,” and a lawn is either “an open space between woods” or “ground that is covered with grass and is kept mowed.”

Before that morning of the perspective shift, all I saw when I looked over the back yard were explosions of dandelions. To this former California suburbanite’s eyes, dandelions are a pox upon the land. It had looked untidy, unkempt, and an affront to civilized sensibilities.

The perspective shift happened suddenly, like in a movie when the focus changes from the main subject to something in the background, and you realize the complexity and depth of the scene you hadn’t noticed before.

Butterflies. Bees. Wildflowers poking up through the grass, hidden among the dandelions. Spiderwebs wafting in a light, morning breeze.

In that instant, I stopped seeing the back yard as a poorly maintained lawn.

I started seeing it as a productive and welcoming meadow, with a natural beauty that was doing just fine without all the rigidly fussy interventions we’re taught are necessary for an eye-pleasing back yard.

It was a liberating feeling, allowing myself to let go of a value system that demanded a dedication to a particular worldview. A worldview, I might add, that is propped up by an entire industry of lawn care products and services.

This perspective shift was also kind of a magical moment, if I’m honest. Not because it gave me permission to be lazy about the lawn, but because the yard suddenly came alive in a way I hadn’t observed before.

No longer was it just a piece of property that was nothing more than an extension of and reflection on me. It was its own entity, a living and thriving system that, quite frankly, was doing just fine without me mucking about with it.

Don’t worry; the back yard is not going to become an overgrown wilderness area. We still want to use it as a back yard. There will be some garden (for my partner who actually owns the house) and nicely maintained flowers.

But in the meantime, it’s nice to see the natural and inherent beauty in this small meadow. And it’s nice to be able to drop the guilt and shame of failing to live up to a value system that I don’t actually subscribe to.

And that’s the kind of feeling I want from life. Liberation from oppressive and judgmental value systems. Alignment with what feels real, authentic, and naturally beautiful.

Peace over turmoil. Wonder over shame. Harmony over dominion.

isn’t that what most of us really want, deep down?

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