This little patch of earth is the greatest paradox in my life. I long to wander and explore and commune with this precious earth - to see her beauty in all her corners.. to find myself amongst the wild things. Simultaneously I live for the flower season, for vegetable season, for butterflies, hummingbirds.. warblers, nests, spiders, and snakes.. I long for my back to ache from spending time with the plants that grow here and my hands to be rough from the dirt that clings to my pores. I long for the complexity in a silent starlit night and the symphonic satisfaction of cricket song.. The buzz of bumble bees and the yellow of black eyed Susan’s.. I long to bathe in mountain streams and crawl under the mountain laurel smelling the moss and damp earth.. and watch my little plants grow to become food for my family and medicine for my soul. My nature is both nurturer and individual - wanderer and hermit.. seeker and finder.. lost and found.. settled and restless.. I am all all the emotions and all the labels. I do not fit in a box nor do I fit in a circle..
It’s Garden Season
Odd as I am sure it will appear to some, I can think of no better form of personal involvement in the cure of the environment than that of gardening. A person who is growing a garden, if he is growing it organically, is improving a piece of the world. He is producing something to eat, which makes him somewhat independent of the grocery business, but he is also enlarging, for himself, the meaning of food and the pleasure of eating.
— Wendell Berry
