Cycles, Ceremonies, and Creeping Phlox

Abstract

This autoethnographic text outlines a devastating ending (the death of my cat) and a beautiful, new beginning (a marriage) and how these events are inextricably linked to a garden that has inspired numerous personal and relational meanings for me. In this feminist text, I reveal my actions, experiences, and ideas in and around our garden and its connections with my personal, spiritual, social, and ecological identity. More specifically, utilizing a spiritual ecofeminist lens, I analyze my experiences within the garden to further define my experiences and place them within a larger social and cultural context. I invite readers into my experience so that they, too, might consider their own relationships with nature and the role of gender therein.

Keywords:

• Animal companion
• autoethnography
• ceremony
• ecofeminism
• gardening