One of the best parts of the warm months of the year is the chance to grow a garden. The joy of watching seeds grow, the time spent outside, and the taste of fresh produce are things I look forward to every year. The benefits of gardening go far beyond tasty food and a pleasant pastime. Energetically, gardening provides a ton of health benefits!

As I talked about in last month’s blog, the three biggest sources of energy are the ground, sun, and air. Gardening is fantastic because it puts us in direct contact with all three sources. We are outside receiving direct sunlight as we put our hands in the earth and breathe fresh air. 

Our chakras absorb this energy and feed it throughout our entire energetic system. As they  “inhale” fresh prana, they “exhale” used or diseased energy. Exercise helps facilitate the exhalation of dirty energy. In other words, as we dig, till, weed, plant, prune, and harvest, our body is replacing used energy with new. By being in direct contact with the earth, sun, and air, this new energy is as pure as it gets.

This pure energy makes its way to your food as well. Prana is lost as we get further away from the energy source. Foods that spend time in a freezer or store shelf, are heavily cooked or processed, or doused with pesticides, hormones, or preservatives will never compare energetically to those grown locally from clean soil and eaten fresh. (Curious about the energetic benefits of food? Check out last month's blog: Tips for an Energetically Cleaner Diet here.)

By gardening you get not only the direct benefits of immediate exposure to clean prana but the secondary benefit of raising and consuming food that is rich with the prana as well!