Sunday, April 22, 2012

The Gardener, the Garden

Seeds.  You plant the seeds.  And you wait.  That's something you learn from gardening.  I'm not a gardener, but I live with one.  And I have learned from my gardener.


You don't just wait.  You tend to the soil.  You water and clear the weeds.  You prepare the ground so that the seeds can find their place, take hold, and emerge.


As a gardener you see the future.  You have a vision.  You see an empty plot of land, you see the dirt, but you are looking beyond the immediate condition, you imagine the greenery to come, the flowers; you imagine smelling the flowers and cultivating the plants, and harvesting the crop.


So you learn patience and vision.  And you learn to care for life beyond the human.  You learn the ways of an ecosystem beyond yourself.  And you learn your place in that ecosystem too.  Lots of lessons in a little garden.  There lots of big things to learn in the little things.  And that's a lesson too.