I am a gardener of very modest talents, though many of my ancestors were serfs and farmers. My garden is 100 square feet, a small patch behind a picket fence. Very New England. In that tiny patch, life is teeming. There are probably close to 100 different species of plants, many planted by me, but most native to the ground here. I am not a compulsive weeder. I find great joy in watching strange green things rise from the earth. Sometimes they are winners; sometimes they are a pain in the ass, like the morning glory vines which try to choke just about anything they can get their tendrils wrapped around. There are about 10 different kinds of bees who pass through regularly. Fat ones, wasps, little ones, all on urgent missions of their own. I saw a particularly cute tiny green grasshopper today next to the boxwood. The grasshopper really showed up all those big black ants who insist on visiting me indoors. Last year I even had a beautiful garter snake, who slept in the morning sun by the garden gate for a week in May. The snails are fun to watch, or rather observe, from day to day, since they are really too slow to watch. There is so much life in my garden that I often lose scores of minutes just staring at it. The neighbors, I am sure, think me insane, or simple or just a garden nerd, I suppose. It never occurs to me what they think when I am absorbed in all that buzzing and growing life out there. And, if I do notice a neighbor passing by, I notice they are most often smiling as they look at my flowers. To be happily absorbed with life, as it simply is, is a great healing blessing. Part of my daily practice has been my garden and its joys.
