It was a hot, humid, milky-sun day in the garden. I was working at getting the herb bed under control and was lost in the work and the sense of my body cutting comfrey: down-up-throw, down-up-throw. In my mini-sun-stroke state, I watched the folks surrounding the raised bed who had come over as I worked. They laid, curled into sleeping bags or just on the ground sound asleep in the hot summer sun, a homeless world's rest period. As I worked one fellow stirred, got up and said, "Can I help? What can I do?" I showed him and moved to the next task. Very little talking in the heat of the day.

I gathered up a huge bundle of comfrey to separate into smaller parcels to hang to dry in the garden shed. I saw an empty chair under the lone pine tree in the garden. Next to it was a woman in her mid to late 60's whom I had met for the first time the week before - with her full shopping cart, disheveled look and wild screaming episodes she'd been very effective at keeping the traditional mental health world at bay. Talking softly more to myself than anyone I said, "Good to sit down to do this work and to get out of the sun." We sat side-by-side as I silently worked: sort-tie-throw down; sort-tie-throw down. She quietly began to talk about using comfrey as we do now, as a salve to heal scratches and sunburns. We talked about growing herbs and their uses, about life in the south and the differences in the taciturn Maine world. About her lost connection to family and friends. As we talked a few other folk came to join the languid day's conversation. We sat as the earth connected and healed us all once more.

In the evolution of the garden we always worked as a volunteer group with equal votes, though the embedded class, authority, and ability to get response from the powers that be made me the de facto leader in the Gandhi way. "There go my people, I must hurry to catch up to them for I am their leader." I am always learning in this project. I learned that very psychotic folks can also have great knowledge in how to grow a garden. Psychosynthesis taught me humility, listening, presence and a wonderful sense that all is going as it should. I have always seen the egg diagram as a dynamic, transformative form where down is up and up is down. So planting a seed creates an opportunity to talk of very painful traumas while being held in the reassurance of the dark, warm earth as the sun brings the light in and also helps the pain to be transformed in the moment as water helps bring the seed into flowering.

Working with homeless people has helped me totally re-define what success is and the difference between collaborative vs. competitive approaches when working with folks. I've worked in this world for 12 years. Psychosynthesis has helped me temper my strong rescuing subpersonality that wants to reach in and change and fix folks. In this world I've learned to turn that energy up-stream; to change the denigrating system that forces low-income people into terrible economic circumstances. I have found no homeless folks who want to be homeless. Only folks who are willing to be homeless rather than abide by rules of others they consider oppressive. It is constantly astonishing to me how stabilizing a private room, adequate food and clothes and a little discretionary funds can be to mental health! The central positive of the garden is what it provides in its very nature: connection, valuing the worth of each person, and the community that develops with the hard physical labor of earth work. Psychosynthesis affirmed my belief that you need to meet people where they are, with respect and honor to the Self they are. Healing works from within the individual in its right time.

I've worked in some capacity of nursing for 34 years. I have immensely enjoyed the flexibility and growth it has offered me. I have worked in all areas of hospital-based nursing. I also worked for six years as a nurse recruiter in human resources at Maine Medical Center, the largest hospital in Maine. In the last 12 years of my working life, I have finally been able to make the connection with my avocation - psychosynthesis - and my vocation - nursing.

I have worked in the community with very low income or homeless people, most with chronic major mental illness and co-morbid substance abuse. As the connection has become more evident to me I've gained the will to move more and more into working in the alternative/complementary health care fields. I now believe that in working with the most chronically ill, homeless folks that gardening and outside art projects, anything outside where there are people, are the most therapeutic and healing for all involved. The boundaries between us melt when trying to decide the most organic way to get rid of Japanese beetles (marigolds are great planted in the periphery of the bed).

Where is psychosynthesis in this garden? The first definition I ever heard of psychosynthesis was "conscious cooperation in the natural process of growth." That's where I begin and end; I mix in humor, compassion and all that continues to be valid from my nursing background: assessment, diagnosis, planning, implementation and evaluation. Psychosynthesis has taught me the value of other; being present; listening ten times more than speaking (definitely still working on that!) and most importantly of all, knowing that the "natural process of growth" is with us as we work bringing the garden to fruition; another harvest of good food, good work, good will.