Tag Archives: Garden

244. The sky puts on the darkening blue coat held for it by a row of ancient trees… ~Ranier Maria Rilke

by

2

It is a good idea to be alone in a garden
at dawn or dark so that
all its shy presences may haunt you and
possess you in a reverie of suspended thought.
~James Douglas

Image

Reverence rises, a hush falls, and a lone bird sings on in the silence of twilight until there is no more cloud cover, no more noise, no more light.  A waxing gibbous moon climbs higher and higher in an azure sky that’s quickly deepening to dark indigo.  Silhouetted trees stand like giant sentinels over the winter-ravaged garden.  The darkness around me now is steeped in calmness beneath the ancient moon that’s casting its glow through the branches of the huge oak as it heads up to cross over heaven’s dome.  Although there’s an element of fear in the dark of night, something sacred draws me into it.  Whenever possible, I linger and, in being haunted by all its shy presences, I feel the wonder of Creation beneath the stars.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established…O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!  Psalm 8:3,9  ✝

242. For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice and to make an end is to make a new beginning. ~T. S. Eliot

by

7

In my garden there is a large place for sentiment.
My garden of flowers is also my garden of thoughts and dreams.
The thoughts grow as freely and the flowers,
and the dreams are as beautiful.
~Abram L. Urban

Image

One of the fascinating things about a garden is that it’s never quite the same from year to year even if nothing is lost or nothing new is planted.  Depending on the variable nature of the weather and the seasons, there is always a difference from one year to the next in the way things grow and perform.  Since a garden is a living, breathing entity, it is always in a state of flux, a continuous inconstancy of gain and loss, rise and fall.  For example one never knows how many seeds will germinate and flourish or when they or something established will perish for one inexplicable reason or another.  So, like people, a garden awaits another “voice” each year, and every ending in it and us yields a new and somewhat different beginning.  Whatever was said and done last year is just that for both nature and humanity, and I’ve found it best to leave what was said and done in the past where it belongs.  Neither do I spend time thinking about new year’s resolutions because I know that the seasons in my life are always different and therefore evoke different feelings within me and different responses from me.

Time and time again life rises from death, and when it does, one can feel the beating heart of heaven and hear the hushed voice of grace–that unchanging holy voice of grace, that sacred in-and-out breath of life, the Presence that captures me again and again and again.  For me that is the only constancy, and I simply cannot live without it or the Ancient of Days by whose grace I live.

“The sounds, the aromas, the speech of life that infiltrates and seduces in heard and unheard melodies echoing from every life form to cocoon, to feed us, to excite us, to give solace, to renew, to cry in joy and sorrow, to create, to birth, to laugh at the sheer exuberance of feeling, I love.”    ~Patricia at: http://theenglishprofessor.net/qualifications.php

Obey the Lord and serve Him faithfully with all your heart; consider all the great things He has done for you.  ~1 Samuel 12:24  ✝

241. O thou, Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed the winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, each like a corpse within its grave, until thine azure sister of the spring shall blow her clarion o’er the dreaming earth. ~John Davies

by

7

I paid a dime for a package of seeds
And the clerk tossed them out with a flip.
“We’ve got ‘em assorted for every man’s needs,”
He said with a smile on his lip.
“Pansies and poppies and asters and peas!
Ten cents a package and pick as you please!”

Now seeds are just dimes to the man in the store
And dimes are the things he needs;
And I’ve been to buy them in seasons before,
But have thought of them merely as seeds.
But it flashed through my mind as I took them this time
“You have purchased a miracle here for a dime!”

“You’ve a dime’s worth of power no man can create,
You’ve a dime’s worth of life in your hand!
You’ve a dime’s worth of mystery, destiny, fate,
Which the wisest cannot understand.
In this bright little package, now isn’t it odd?
You’ve a dime’s worth of something known only to God.
~Edgar A. Guest

Image

Nowadays a packet of seeds costs more than a dime; yet one can still buy a packet of “miracles” for a reasonable sum.  And the initial investment is small compared to the potential yield not only from the generous number of seeds in each packet but also from the seeds that those plants ultimately produce.  I know because my garden is full of plants started from seeds I never bought.  Not only that but lots of birds eat well on the excess “birdseed” I don’t have to buy.  So it is that in nurturing I am nurtured.  By becoming a part of the “cosmic consciousness,” I  get to participate in the sacred dance of life.

The Book of Genesis tells us that on the third day the Lord created seed-bearing plants and trees.  And from the moment He spoke those words, countless seasons have come and gone and the soil in any given garden has quaked with life from seeds forming in its dark wombs.  As the trembling in “dark wintry beds” increased, an impetus not unlike labor pains pushed roots downward and tiny green shoots upwards toward the light until at last new “miracles” became stable,visible, and tangible.  As more and more darkness melted away in the blaze of lengthening days and intensifying sunlight, the warp and woof of nature began weaving another springtime into existence.  And when the shroud of gloom, winter’s drab garment, was finally sloughed off it was replaced by spring’s brilliant, gauzy garments, garments as colorful as the “silks of Samarkand.”

Isaac sowed seed in that land, and in the same year reaped a hundredfold.  ~Genesis 26:12  ✝

240. …everyone wants to be excited by something magical and wondrous – to be reminded of how they once saw the world… ~John Geddes

by

13

“I watched bulls bred to cows, watched mares foal, I saw life come from the egg and the multiplicative wonders of mudholes and ponds, the jell and slime of life shimmering in gravid expectation. Everywhere I looked, life sprang from something not life, insects unfolded from sacs on the surface of still waters and were instantly on prowl for their dinner, everything that came into being knew at once what to do and did it, unastonished that it was what it was, unimpressed by where it was, the great earth heaving up bloodied newborns from every pore, every cell, bearing the variousness of itself from every conceivable substance which it contained in itself, sprouting life that flew or waved in the wind or blew from the mountains or stuck to the damp black underside of rocks, or swam or suckled or bellowed or silently separated in two.”  ~E. L. Doctorow

Image

Life!  Life I say!  Life-sacred and mysterious–I’ve had a hand in creating life again!  And as usual, it is ever so magical and wondrous!  Since early last week I’ve been setting bulbs in containers in the greenhouse, and even as cold as it has been today, I made my daily visit out there to see if anything had started happening.   And as tiny a start as it was, life had indeed begun!  Actor Mike Dolan once said, you should “anticipate the day as if it were your birthday and you were turning six.”  I did and it was and I responded like any normal 6 year old, with a dropping of my jaw and squeals of joy.  The photos aren’t great but you can see where roots have started forming on the bottom of a hyacinth bulb and the tiny green emergence of a ranunculus bulb.

You garden because you need
to make a profound connection with the Earth.
It’s your birthright.
A primordial longing to experience
and participate in the magic of nature.
The deep knowing that ultimately nature is your teacher.
Your guide.
You’re a participant. A cog in the wheel. Not in charge.
~Fran Sorin, Gardening Gone Wild,  http://www.gardeninggonewild.com/

My garden and my greenhouse are my classrooms, and the Lord is my teacher and facilitator.  “See, God exalted in His power; who is a teacher like Him?”  ~Job 36:22

239. Blow, blow, thou Winter wind… ~William Shakespeare

by

9

How can those who do not garden,
who have no lot in the great fraternity of those
who watch the changing year
as it affects the earth and its growth,
how can they keep warm their hearts in winter?
~Francis King

Image

Blustery was the north wind that came up last night.  As it ran groaning around the corners of the house, it rattled the windows and doors.  But there were no snow flurries nor threats of icy assaults, no misery other than the cold sting in the sound of creaking tree limbs, in the sound of the rushing gale.  As the Sabbath dawned, blue were the skies and bright was the light from above, but the relentless, chilling winds kept on and in check the thermometer.  The endless gusts and leafy flutterings throughout the day intimated over and over again that tonight will neither be inviting nor without loss.  To lower the risks inside faucets will be left to drip, cabinet doors will be opened in front of the pipes below, and thermostats will be turned up higher than usual.  So I will not feel the bite of the chilling wind nor will my heart for, oddly enough, I know where lay outside what will keep it warm. Though I know not how they survive, the larkspur seedlings in the photo will make it through this long, cold night as well as others like it.  I may not be able to fathom all that God built into Creation, but I can and do praise Him for all His goodness.

From its chamber comes the whirlwind, and cold from scattering winds.  ~Job 37:9  ✝

230. He who marvels at the beauty of the world in summer will find equal cause for wonder and admiration in winter… ~John Burroughs

by

13

Nature looks dead in winter because
her life is gathered into her heart.
She withers the plant down to the root
that she may grow it up again fairer and stronger.
She calls her family together
within her inmost home to prepare them
for being scattered abroad upon the face of the earth.
~Hugh Macmillan

Image

This time of year there’s a separateness in the garden which I rather like, but I’ve heard others say that they detest the bleak lifelessness of winter.  When asked why, they’ll tell me it’s because it fills them with a sense of loneliness or it speaks too strongly of death.  I, on the other hand, find a comforting orderliness in its realm because I can see the garden’s defining lines again after they’d been blurred or even obliterated in some cases by summer’s reckless, spreading abandon.   And when I’m out working in the winter garden as I was today, I don’t feel any sense of sadness; the feeling I get is more of a silent, but willing withdrawal–a retreat back to a trusted, reviving source.  It seems to me that the barren remains stand self-assuredly in an awareness of Creation’s ever-faithful, annual renewal and somehow understands winter’s lesson of waiting with expectancy and hope.

As long as earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.  ~ Genesis 8:22  ✝

214. Angels descending, bring from above, echoes of mercy, whispers of love. ~Fanny J. Crosby

by

6

Ever felt an angel’s breath
in the gentle breeze?
A teardrop in the falling rain?
Hear a whisper among the rustle of leaves?
Or been kissed by a lone snowflake?
Nature is an angel’s favorite hiding place.
~Carrie Latet

Image

Standing amid the remains of a dying year and clothed in a dress splattered with mud this garden angel retains every bit of her vibrant elegance.  Even in the high winds of last week’s arctic storm she held her ground, waiting and watching, as quietly as the trees and dormant roses around her.  And the angel will keep on watching over this garden while my friend, inside the house, continues to busy herself attempting to heal hurting, human hearts; for you see, my friend, like an angel, is a also guardian.  She guards the secrets of her clients who entrust the painful realities of their pasts to her keeping.  Both she and her garden angel then are reminders of the Lord’s love and watchfulness over Creation and His children.  The fruits of the Holy Spirit with which my friend is gifted are what she draws upon to sustain her clients while she speaks words of wholeness in their wounded spirits.  Why is speaking the tool of her trade?  The Lord spoke the world and all that live in it into being; therefore, the spoken word in all of us who are created in His image has great power, power for good and for evil.  When any of us choose to speak loving, affirming words they fall on mortal ears like the sweet breath of an angel whispering incantations of healing benedictions.  So it is that my friend’s loving words of understanding and compassion and wisdom can be to the soul of her clients what water, in this dry and arid land, is to her garden.

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.  ~Genesis 1:26  ✝

210. If you really want to draw close to your garden, you must remember first of all that you are dealing with a being that lives and dies…One will not always see it dressed up for a ball, manicured and immaculate. ~Fernand Lequenme

by

13

I love people,
I love my family,
my children…
but inside myself
is a place where I live all alone
and that’s where you
renew your springs
that never dry up.
~Pearl S. Buck

Image

Image

Last week’s frigid winds and pelting sleet so punished the late blooming roses and perennials that their flowers, hips, and leaves were left hanging like the heads of mourners as they perished on nights too cold to sustain fragile life.  But usually when our area endures an arctic storm such as this one, it’s not too long before the temps warm back up enough to melt the snow and/or ice. This assault, however, lowered temperatures so far below the freezing mark and the cloud cover has stayed in place so long that it may be a week or more before the temps rise high enough to rid us of the treacherous frozen remains.  On those warmer days, whenever they do come, I’ll be chomping at the bit, as usual, to “draw close” to my beloved garden and dispose of the flowery carnage left in the storm’s wake.  I like to do that so that when next I’m in that place “where I live all alone” like Buck and am unable to get outside, I can look out the window at the garden’s “ball gown” without it looking quite so tattered and torn.

The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs…strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.  ~Isaiah 58:11

208. It is the life of the crystal, the architect of the flake, the fire of the frost… ~John Burroughs

by

8

We feel cold, but we don’t mind it
because we will not come to harm.
And if we wrapped ourselves against the cold,
we wouldn’t feel other things,
like the bright tingle of the stars,
music of the Aurora,
or best of all the silky feeling of moonlight on our skin.
~Philip Pullman

Image

Image

After last night’s winter storm, we woke to find the ground, the streets, and the rooftops covered in a solid blanket of sleet mixed with snow.  Icicles were hanging from eaves and other solid objects; branches, stems, leaves and the few remaining roses had been encapsulated in ice.  The forbidding frozen world outside was steeped in silence but for the occasional gusts of wind that sent falling leaves round and round in capricious little whirlwinds tapping softly against the icy ground.

In the coming days the garden will shrink dramatically.  It’s beauty will be harder to see, but for those who continually walk its paths with searching eyes and vivid memories, emerging treasures can be spotted and glory envisioned in places where it was and shall rise again from seeming nothingness.  During the warmer spells in the next few months, I’ll clean up the growing season’s spreading, untidy tangle and reshape her fetching figure while below in her fertile womb mysteries, ancient and sacred, are coming together to birth yet another springtime.

Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm.  He said From whose womb comes the ice?  Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens when the water become hard as stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen?  ~Job 38:1 and 29-30  ✝

207. Come, come thou bleak December wind, and blow the dry leaves from the tree! ~Samuel Taylor Coleridge

by

15

The leaves drift toward the earth like ships to land,
a voyage launched from timbers’ great lofty berths,
toward harbors safe, concealed from raider bands,
of icy galleons coursing wintry dearth.
~Dan Young

Image

Brrrrrrrr!  Winter, though its debut isn’t until the solstice on December 21st, has been sending emissaries with forewarnings of its coming, but so far the fiercest courier it has dispatched is the bearer of today’s tidings.  The forecast this time around includes threats of freezing rain, accumulations of ice, and the possibility of a wintry mix of ice and snow.  The frigid north winds this particular messenger brought in are pushing fast and hard against comely autumn’s closing doors.  So if not from this cold front, then from another one that can’t be far behind, the time draws near for that all too frigid breath of air to not simply shake and disturb the garden but to completely destroy its few blooming remnants.  Whatever comes of this assault may put an end to rambling and pottering in the garden for awhile. But, the first seed catalog came yesterday, and whilst I wait for the sun’s return, next year’s dreamin’ and schemin’ can get underway.

The tempest comes out from its chamber, the cold from the driving winds.  The breath of God produces ice, and the broad waters become frozen.  ~Job 37:9-10  ✝