Inspiration

Gardening as a Mystery

Gardening is an act of faith, it is also a search for a better world and an attempt to create it in one's own small way. It is a profound involvement in the essence of creation and the deepest mysteries of who and what we are and our relationship to all that is around us.

The gardener may not regard himself as partaking of some special purpose, for working with the soil has been part of human activity for around 5,000 years. Yet since humans first stopped migrating and put down roots in an area of land to call 'home' they have engaged in a special relationship with the land. Our homes are an expression of who and what we are. And the land around it likewise.

As a species therefore if we damage and abuse the land around us or pollute it then in effect we are denying our own higher purpose and potential. And we are diminishing and corrupting ourselves.

We must re-discover the prehistoric sense of being and knowing that all around us is a part of ourselves and that we are a part of it. Without this primary realization and mandate there is little hope for the survival of the species- at least not in the kind of world that any of us today would care to live in.

Responsibility

A gardener does not leave litter around his gardener and he does not pollute or abuse it. Quite likely almost no humans pollute or litter their own personal living solace. This planet is in n fact our home. If I were to drop litter in the street or in the landscape I would feel quite literally sick and violated. Every step I take outside of my home or garden is a step in a remarkable planet floating in the universe- quite literally it is unique amongst the trillions of stars out there. 

Do we believe ourselves in any way special, distinct, unique? Are our own lives important to us? Do we want a better world and a better life? Then in the spirit of Chief Seattle of the Oglala Sioux how can we harm our own Mother?

Quotations

Around my garden are  30 quotations that invoke the essence and the spirit of the gardener and gardening. These are on slate plaques. I always urge people to walk slowly around the garden, stop and read each one, and then look around, listen to the water and bird song and sense their very pulse of being alive in a space that is fecund, cherished and hopeful and in its way sacred.

Here is a short selection:

To create a garden is to search for a better world.

In our effort to improve on nature, we are guided by a vision of paradise.

Whether the result is a horticultural masterpiece or only a modest vegetable patch,

it is based on the expectation of a glorious future.

This hope for the future is at the heart of all gardening.

(Marina Schinz)

*

Gardens are not created or made, they unfold,

to reveal the ground plot of the mind and heart

of the gardener and the good earth.

(Wendy Johnson

*

No occupation is so delightful to me

as the culture of the earth,

and no culture comparable

to that of the garden

(Thomas Jefferson)

*

The garden reconciles human art and wild nature,

hard work and deep pleasure, 

spiritual practice and the material world.

It is a magical place because it is not divided.

(Thomas Moore)

*

To create a garden is to search for a better world.

In our effort to improve on nature, 

we are guided by a vision of paradise.

Whether the result is a horticultural masterpiece

or only a modest vegetable patch,

it is based on the expectation of a glorious future.

This hope for the future is at the heart of all gardening.

(Marina Schinz)

*

By a garden is meant

Mystically a place of

spiritual repose, stillness,

peace, refreshment, delight.

(John Henry Cardinal Newman)