What Things Can Teach Us
In dark times when the world becomes too much, I feel the need re-root myself in memories that provide a sense of balance in a world that has gone upside down. At such times, it is there that I find peace and harmony to carry on.
In the dark days that come with rain, my memory retrieves moments filled with sunshine. Time spent moving about in the gardens of my life. Hours spent decades ago along a seacoast, collecting sand dollars and shells with my sisters, leaving a trail of child-sized footprints behind that have long since marched out to sea. A 3-day passage in my early twenties aboard a Cambodian freighter sailing from Manila to Bangkok—an on-deck experience that left me with the worst sunburn of my life. Swimming, freckled shoulders, zinc oxide whitening my nose. All are stored memories of the sun’s powerful warmth.
When the clouds finally departed last week, I migrated out to our deck in the late afternoon and sat with my back to the sun--one cat next to me, another on the rug where my bare feet rested. Like sphinxes frozen in time, we stared northward, allowing the sun’s rays to work their magic fingers on our necks and backs. In that shared meditation, birdsong grew louder, leaves swayed audibly, and tiny tree frogs joined in the chorus. In such moments, nature teaches us to listen.
In the cloudless days that followed, I ventured out into our gardens, one quadrant at a time. When I open a dictionary, I easily forget the word I’m searching when columns of other equally interesting words jump out from each page. It’s the same with gardens. Everywhere, rain-fed volunteer grasses and twigs blown from tall pines need to be removed by hand if order is to be maintained--especially along the pathway leading to our spirit house recently mounted on a new post.
Irises planted last fall are now as tall as my forearm. One blossomed today in time to witness tonight’s lunar eclipse. All around the forest floor that defines this pathway garden, tiny white blossoms that resemble dogwood flowers have sprouted atop woodland plants that have blanketed this forested world that I’ve now turned into a meditation garden.
Following memory to a garden from an earlier chapter of life, I begin removing honeysuckle clusters and acorn sprouts crowding in amongst irises poised to unveil their lacy blossoms. Nearby, May Apples flutter along the edge of the woods as if waving to be noticed. Sunbeams wink at me from the creek below that was a torrent in motion just days ago, reminding me of how quickly things in life can change.
The chore that I put off until last required protective clothing, great patience, and enormous courage. At one end of our meadow garden is an asparagus bed planted a decade ago. Parallel to it are two long rows of assorted berry bushes that have spread southward by reaching over their wire restraints and putting down new shoots wherever they make contact with soil. To create a new row, you need only sever the canes midway between the rooted ends, and voila! However, getting into the tangle to tidy and straighten the rows is a prickly and potentially bloody business.
Dressed in an old long-sleeved shirt, thick gardening gloves, sunglasses and wide-brimmed hat, I headed into the thicket to do battle. First, I dug up every cane that had dared to root itself in the asparagus bed. In the process, I managed to decapitate several emerging asparagus stalks but in the end left it clear of weeds. I then dove into the berry thicket, weeding the paths between rows, transplanting newly sprouted cane ends, and achieving two additional rows of berry plantings by afternoon’s end. Like berry canes, we wander, re-root ourselves in new soil, and seek space of our own in which to experience life’s challenges. With age, thick, thorny blackberry canes grow old and must be thinned when they die to allow light in and provide space for new growth.
At last, cleanup begins. A wheelbarrow full of dead canes and weeds is wheeled to the edge of the woods. Tools are put away, and I drag myself inside for a much needed shower. Hair washed, clean clothes on, and gardening tasks done, I sit outside and allow the sun and breeze to dry my hair. A wren lands nearby, its song a poem encapsulating a lifetime of nature’s lessons—