Soul Lessons from 17 Gardens, Biodynamic Memories "Profoundly wholesome, entertaining, nourishing." Steven McFadden author, The Call of the Land Deep.
Table of contents
I know they are there to eavesdrop for the angels. Bates, A Love of Flowers My garden is my favorite teacher. The year's before us; Spring's promise fills the air. Johns, The Passing Show The man who has planted a garden feels that he has done something for the good of the world It is a pleasure to eat of the fruit of one's toil, if it be nothing more than a head of lettuce or an ear of corn.
One cultivates a lawn even with great satisfaction; for there is nothing more beautiful than grass and turf in our latitude To dig in the mellow soil One gets strength out of the ground There is life in the ground; it goes into the seeds; and it also, when it is stirred up, goes into the man who stirs it.
The hot sun on his back as he bends to shovel and hoe, or contemplatively rakes the warm and fragrant loam, is better than much medicine. You have got to love your garden whether you like it or not. My interests are divided between my geraniums and my books. With the flower I am in the present; with the book I am in the past.
A Book of Essays Written in the Country , If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need. Like his plants and trees, I grew up as a part of his garden. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life.
Culture and Agriculture Everything, from kings to cabbages, needs a root in the soil somewhere. The Vacation Habit," grounding When weeding, the best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it. If it comes out of the ground easily, it is a valuable plant. Shift your thinking and you'd be surprised at the places your food can be grown! Window sill, fire escape and rooftop gardens have the same potential to provide impressive harvests as backyard gardens, greenhouses and community spaces.
They are solvable mysteries. The Education of an Urban Farmer My little bit of earth in the front garden is one of the places that I find my bearings. The rhythm of my day begins with a cup of coffee and a little bit of weeding or dreaming. It's yellow as lemon and white as the snow; bluish gray. So many colors below. Hidden in darkness as thick as the night; The only rainbow that can form without light. Dig you a pit, or bore you a hole, you'll find enough colors to well rest your soil. Hole — , "A Rainbow of Soil Words" Anybody who wants to rule the world should try to rule a garden first.
It is an insatiable passion, like everything else to which a man gives his heart. Weatherall, And some can pot begonias and some can bud a rose, And some are hardly fit to trust with anything that grows You are warned of the danger that he may prove to be Garden Pest no 1. To write as one should of a garden one must not write outside it or merely somewhere near it, but in the garden. And I find sufficient purpose for my day. If they get what they need, they thrive — that's what I know. A garden I need never go beyond, Broken but neat, whose sunflowers every one Are fit to be the sign of the Rising Sun During the harvest each spring, it is with joyous anticipation that I visit the garden daily, simply for the satisfaction of finding those tender new shoots reaching up towards the sun.
You can spray them with acid, beat them with sticks and burn them; they love it. Perelman, Acres and Pains , Work, through the summer golden, And through the autumn's glow, Till the months lay down their burden In the full garden's guerdon, And earth, once more enfolden, Sleeps warm beneath the snow. And all the time it is in the soil, right beneath our feet. The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth Life begins the day you start a garden. I may sound like a kook who plants my landscape with cucumbers instead of carnations, peppers instead of petunias, and fruit trees rather than ficus, but I am convinced that wherever you go, you can grow food!
Now is the time for us to join together and plant the seeds that will transform the places in which we live. Now there is nothing pleasanter than spading when the ground is soft and damp. You turn a spade full and then carefully knock all the lumps to pieces and you go on for hours without thinking about anything. They're just not ready. How can I live my life stepping on this stuff and not wonder at it? Science says that an acre of soil produces one horsepower every day.
But you could pour gasoline all over the ground forever and never see it sprout maple trees. I think it is a flower garden; she thinks it is a meadow lacking grass, and tries to correct the error. It takes a while to grasp that a garden isn't a testing ground for character and to stop asking, what did I do wrong?
Perelman The kiss of the sun for pardon, The song of the birds for mirth, One is nearer God's heart in a garden Than anywhere else on earth. Whiting Why do farmers farm, given their economic adversities on top of the many frustrations and difficulties normal to farming?
And always the answer is: They must do it for love. They love to watch and nurture the growth of plants. They love to live in the presence of animals. They love to work outdoors. They love the weather, maybe even when it is making them miserable. They love to live where they work and to work where they live. If the scale of their farming is small enough, they like to work in the company of their children and with the help of their children. They love the measure of independence that farm life can still provide.
Then I'll only be two bags short. We return to the earth. And in between we garden. Man loved the flowers and invented vases. Man loved the birds and invented cages. The moment that a child can walk, like that in which it first can talk, is a precious start of exploration into landscapes of creation. Walking, walking, walking, walking, walking on the earth. By sense of touch the feet assess the nature of the wilderness of earth beneath; yet human speech cannot express what feet can teach.
Hole — , "Walking on the Earth" I saw all the people hustling early in the morning to go into the factories and the stores and the office buildings, to do their job, to get their checks. But ultimately, it's not office buildings or jobs that give us our checks. The soil is what gives us the real income that supports us all. I doe hold it, in the Royall ordering of Gardens , there ought to be Gardens , for all the Moneths in the Yeare: In which, severally Things of Beautie, may in then in Season.
Imagine small strips of land between apartment buildings that have been turned into vegetable gardens, and urban orchards planted at schools and churches to grow food for our communities. The seeds of the urban farming movement already are growing within our reality. Take the free Urban Farm tour, info on Greg's website. One is the January thaw. The other is the seed catalogues. The outlines of all things and designs are drawn in Nature, and it is the sweet privilege of Man to divine and fill out these sketches, completing in Art what is begun in Nature.
I think I garden more to the eye than to the appetites. Bronson Alcott, journal Often But for some revolutionary gardeners, a feast for the eyes is not enough. They want something edible in return for the hard work, the water and the expense of tending a landscape. These food revolutionaries are maximizing their cultivation area by converting their landscapes, patios, and nearby vacant lots into productive edible gardens.
In the quest for more space to grow food, even conventional front lawns are being transformed into maverick, and highly visible, vegetable plots It is enough To smell, to crumble the dark earth Every single day, your garden has something new and wonderful to show you. Provide now against next spring. Get a cheap diary and leave it in the pocket of your work clothes or hang it up in the tool shed.
Spirituality
In it jot down from time to time the things you particularly want to keep track of. Keep a Garden Diary," A gardener's best tool is the knowledge from previous seasons. All this, and better, Thou dost send Me, to this end, That I should render, for my part, A thankful heart. It infects you, you cannot escape it. When you go visiting, your eyes rove about the garden; you interrupt the serious cocktail drinking because of an irresistible impulse to get up and pull a weed.
Crisp and green the lettuce there,— Onions, row by row,— Radishes beyond compare! Spring and I with tender care Watch them well, you know! This powerful metaphor suggests an early realization of a profound truth that humanity has since disregarded to its own detriment. Since the words "humility" and "humble" also derive from humus , it is rather ironic that we should have assigned our species so arrogant a name as Homo sapiens sapiens "wise wise man". It occurs to me, as I ponder our past and future relation to the earth, that we might consider changing our name to a more modest Homo sapiens curans , with the word curans denoting caring or caretaking, as in "curator.
Of course, we must work to deserve the new name, even as we have not deserved the old one. It is not to give the possessor vegetables and fruit that can be better and cheaper done by the market-gardeners , but to teach him patience and philosophy, and the higher virtues,—hope deferred, and expectations blighted The garden thus becomes a moral agent, a test of character, as it was in the beginning.
My mouth waters for the ripening sweet corn. Winter carrots slowly set down their tender roots. A breeze brings the smell of apples. Kale, collards and broccoli unfurl their leafy coats, getting ready for frost. We need to be fully awake in this moment if we are to receive and respond to the learning inherent in it.
There is no evidence for it, but you can't prove that there aren't any, so shouldn't we be agnostic with respect to fairies? The mountain with its singular bright shade Like the blue shine on freshly frozen snow, The after-light upon ice-burdened pines; Odor of basswood upon a mountain slope, A scene beloved of bees; Silence of water above a sunken tree: The pure serene of memory of one man,-- A ripple widening from a single stone Winding around the waters of the world.
I must have been twenty-five or twenty-six. I had just been hired to teach high school philosophy in a town on the edge of a canal, up in the fields near the Belgian border. That particular evening, some friends and I had gone out for a walk in the forest we liked so much. Gradually our laughter faded, and the conversation died down. Nothing remained but our friendship, our mutual trust and shared presence, the mildness of the night air and of everything around us And, then, all of sudden A seemingly infinite happiness.
A seemingly eternal sense of peace. Above me, the starry sky was immense, luminous and unfathomable, and within me there was nothing but the sky, of which I was a part, and the silence, and the light, like a warm hum, and a sense of joy with neither subject or object no object other than everything, no subject other than itself. Yes, in the darkness of that night, I contained only the dazzling presence of the All. To plant a pine, one need only own a shovel. The sacred lies in the ordinary.
You are enfolded in the weaving of divine mysteries. You redden like the dawn and You burn: Yet it is salutary to deal with the surface of things. What are these rivers and hills, these hieroglyphics which my eyes behold? There is something invigorating in this air, which I am peculiarly sensible is a real wind, blowing from over the surface of a planet.
I look out at my eyes. I come to my window, and I feel and breathe the fresh air. It is a fact equally glorious with the most inward experience. Why have we ever slandered the outward? Ever since I saw for once the peaches in bloom, Not a shadow of doubt do I cherish. For these plants that have an illusory relationship with us, which in no way alters their existentiality, we are merely an event, an accident, and our presence, which seems so solid, laden with gravity, is to them no more than a momentary void in motion through the air.
Reality is a quality that belongs to them, and we can exercise no rights over it. This arcane act of nature, though perceived by us as ordinary, is a manifestation of Maya's phantom play, the great immensity expressed in every way. My garden is the universe. I am the universe. I am my garden. All things are the same. Practically, we learn to nurture the soil and grow the things we need; psychologically we become 'grounded' and more balanced as we develop our awareness of how the earth under our feet supports and connects us; emotionally we gain a sense of well-being, when we connect with it as our home; intellectually we learn more about it at every opportunity; metaphysically we honour it as one of the four elements; and, on the spiritual plane, we learn to respect and reverence the Earth, as a manifestation, or, if you so believe, the divine creation, of life energy, whose evolutionary history from the beginning of the universe all beings share.
Where the rippling waters go, Cast a stone and truth you'll know. The name 'Paradise' comes from 'pairdaeza,' Old Persian for a park or enclosure, and wherever Islam held sway can be found enclosed, paradisiacal gardens. These ideal oases of a dessert people have trees for shade, and water, revered as an elemental force, for music and entrancement, and its ability to open the mind to inspiration.
There is not much to say about the "Unknown. Rather than "love mankind," it'd rather admire a few good people. A callused palm and dirty fingernails precede a Green Thumb. Complexity is closer to the Truth. Sitting in a garden and doing nothing is high art everywhere. Does a plum tree with no fruit have Buddha Nature?
The only Zen you'll find flowering in the garden is the Zen you bring there each day.
The Theory Behind Back to Eden Gardening
A garden is quite ordinary, yet still sacred. Dogmatists are less useful than dogs. This cabbage, these carrots, these potatoes, these onions.. Such a tasty fact! It is best to shut one's mouth when facing the sacred. Time creeps, wals, runs and flies - it is all about moving things. Inside the gardener is the spirit of the garden outside. Dearly respect the lifestyle of worms. All enlightened beings are enchanted by water.
Becoming invisible to oneself is one pure act of gardening. Priapus, lively and naughty, aroused and outlandish, is the Duende de el Jardin. Gardening is a kind of deadheading - keeping us from going to seed.
What is Back to Eden Gardening?
The joyful gardener is evidence of an incarnation. One purpose of a garden is to stop time. Leafing is the practice of seeds. Remember that the River of Forgetfulness flows by the Elysian Fields. People who speak loudly about the "One True Religion" scare the ship out of most of us. No body then no mind; no mind then a useless body.
When the Divine knocks, don't send a prophet to the door. Most Laws of Gardening are merely local ordinances. The summit of the mountain, the thunder of the sky, speaks to me.
The faintness of the stars, the trail of the sun, the strength of fire, and the life that never goes away, they speak to me. And my heart soars. In a wild field, not choosing, picking up whatever comes to hand, the obvious meaning of Zen is clear in the hundred grasses. Indeed, the green bamboo, the clusters of yellow flowers, fences, walls, tiles, and pebble us the teaching of the inanimate; rivers, birds, trees, and groves expound suffering, emptiness, and selflessness.
This is based on the one true reality, producing unconditional compassion, manifesting uncontrived, supremely wondrous power in the great jewel light of nirvana.
- Red.
- GradeSaver (TM) ClassicNotes The Alchemist (Jonson) Study Guide.
- Deep Gardening;
An ancient master said, "Meeting a companion on the Way, spending a life together, the whole task of study is done. An ancient worthy, working in the fields in his youth , was breaking up clumps of earth when he saw a big clod, which he playfully smashed with a fierce blow; as it shattered, he was suddenly greatly enlightened. One Zen master attained enlightenment on seeing the flagpole of a teaching center from the other side of a river. Another spoke of the staff of the spirit. One adept illustrated Zen realization by planting a hoe in the ground; another master spoke of Zen in term of sowing the fields.
All of these instances were bringing out this indestructible true being, allowing people to visit a greatly liberated true teacher without moving a step. Carrying out the unspoken teaching, attaining unhindered eloquence, thus they forever studied all over from all things, embracing the all-inclusive universe, detaching from both abstract and concrete definitions of buddhahood, and transcendentally realizing universal, all pervasive Zen in the midst of all activities.
Why necessarily consider holy places, teachers' abodes, or religious organizations and forms prerequisite to personal familiarity and attainment of realization? The Heavens were an oracle, and spoke Divinity: To nurture a garden is to feed not just on the body, but the soul. Share the botanical bliss of gardeners through the ages, who have cultivated philosophies to apply to their own - and our own - lives: Show me your garden and I shall tell you what you are.
Awareness of when such moments are most likely helps to make them happen; they will not be entirely accidental but anticipated; everything will be planned to encourage them. We can experience that stasis is illusory and that reality is continual flux and change on very subtle and also on gross levels of perception. The plant sources of these drugs--the visionary vegetables--have been worshiped as gods in many times and places, and the persons employing the drugs as a means of acquiring "super-natural powers'' have been the priests, prophets, visionaries, and other leaders of their respective societies.
East and West, civilized and primitive, religious thought and all that flows from it almost certainly has been importantly influenced by the psychedelic drugs If this is Paganism, then at present, at least, I am a Pagan. Clear water has no taste. The tongue has no bone. In complete stillness, a stone girl is dancing. Spirit and body chemistry. Living with awareness of oneness with all aspects of life - including each other and food - lies at the heart of enlightened eating and the mystery of food's ability to nourish both body and soul. By approaching food meditatively and with loving intention, we may go beyond the level of thought and intuit the sacred connection between Mother Earth, food, and humankind.
The gardener may find deeper meaning in life by paying attention to the parables of the garden. Nature teaches quiet lessons to the gardener who chooses to live within the paradigm of the garden. I am the mist of morning, the breath of evening. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden or even your bathtub. The researcher, Mike Steven, established that gardens have the potential to satisfy nine basic human needs subsistence, protection, affection, understanding, participation, leisure, creation, identity, freedom across four existential states being, having, doing and interacting.
If thy heart were right, then every creature would be a mirror of life and a book of holy doctrine. There is no creature so small and abject, but it reflects the goodness of God. This is physics, I believe, as well as religion. The parts change and pass, or die, people and races and rocks and stars; none of them seems to me important it itself, but only the whole.
The whole is in all its parts so beautiful, and is felt by me to be so intensely in earnest, that I am compelled to love it, and to think of it as divine. It seems to me that this whole alone is worthy of the deeper sort of love; and that there is peace, freedom, I might say a kind of salvation, in turning one's affections outward toward this one God, rather than inwards on one's self, or on humanity, or on human imaginations and abstractions - the world of the spirits.
Stewart, Power Within the Land.
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- Cantata No. 91: Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ, BWV91!
- Wicked Odd (Stories to Chill the Heart series Book 4).
The British write R.