Gardeners of the Heart
My friend, Roland, is a master gardener. He recently learned that his home above Boulder was completely destroyed in a forest fire. He writes:
"Life is change. We do not really know what is around the next corner yet we act as though each day will be a mirror image of the last. Then the landscape totally shifts. On Thursday Sept. 9 we had final confirmation that our house and gardens in the mountains above Boulder were destroyed by the 4 Mile Canyon fire. After a few days of holding our breath, we knew the worst. It is ironic that in August I described the evolution of my garden. The linked spaces reflected the effort and love of 15 years of gardening; it had a special energy and natural somewhat untidy beauty. But gardens are ephemeral: they last only as long as nature decides. The plumes of burning pine trees reached 200 feet in the air. The temperatures were enough to melt steel and sterilize soil life to a depth of 18 inches. Nothing survives...My garden travels with me - images and designs formed in my imagination. Next week, we move into a rental house in Boulder with a small garden. Gardeners are naturally generous and giving. Already, I have offers of plants and extra space. The outpouring of love and support has been far beyond anything I could ever expect."
After a brief period of shock, despair, and grieving, Roland showed amazing resilience, throwing himself back into life. He has always displayed amour fati that inspires me. Life IS change. Nature really does heal all with time and a little help.
In moments of crisis I must remind myself: Can I accept life WHOLE? Not pursuing wholeness as another ego project of getting more or doing more but embracing the whole experience of life?
Can we say "yes" and continue to participate in life even when all around us things seem to be burning up or falling apart? This requires a sort of binocular vision, seeing all the tensions, oppositions, losses, through ordinary consciousness, but at the same time cultivating a garden that travels with us, a garden of the heart.
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In sympathy on the seeming death through fire of Robert's garden, in admiration for his resilience at sustaining the flame of a vision for gardens past and future, I am reminded of a poem by the German Expressionist Stefan George to whom the countless ways in which a garden's spirit manifests itself throughout the seasons, symbolized the unceasing transitions in all of creaturely and spiritual life.
Come to the garden that they say is dead, and view
The shimmer of the smiling shores beyond,
The stainless clouds with unexpected blue
Diffuse a light on motley path and pond.
The tender grey, the burning yellow seize
Of birch and boxwood, mellow is the breeze.
Not wholly do the tardy roses wane,
So kiss and gather them and wreathe the chain.
The purple on the twists of wilding vine,
The last of asters you shall not forget,
And what of living verdure lingers yet,
Around the autumn vision lightly twine.
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