Six Wonderful Years!
The gardens at Merry Mount require our attention throughout three seasons of the year: Spring for tilling and planting; Summer for weeding and harvest; and Autumn for harvest and “putting away”.
Gardening is a well-used metaphor for life. I posit, "sow your seed, manage the work, have gratitude for the harvest."
Today I wish to share with you a quote from Maria Popova’s blog “Brainpickings”: https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/03/14/an-absorbing-errand-janna-malamud-smith/
Popova quotes Robin Wall Kimmerer:
“It
came to me while picking beans, the secret of happiness.
I was
hunting among the spiraling vines that envelop my teepees of pole beans,
lifting the dark-green leaves to find handfuls of pods, long and green, firm
and furred with tender fuzz. I snapped them off where they hung in slender
twosomes, bit into one, and tasted nothing but August, distilled into pure,
crisp beaniness… By the time I finished searching through just one trellis, my
basket was full. To go and empty it in the kitchen, I stepped between heavy
squash vines and around tomato plants fallen under the weight of their fruit.
They sprawled at the feet of the sunflowers, whose heads bowed with the weight
of maturing seeds.”
 |
| Rett in the vegetable garden |
Rett, no doubt, recognizes Kimmerer's sentiment.
In Barbara Cooney’s wonderful children’s book, Miss Rumphius, the Lupine Lady continues to fulfill her grandfather’s charge to, “…do something to make the world more beautiful.” She scatters lupine seeds across her landscape and advises her great nieces and nephews to find their own way to “…do something to make the world more beautiful.”
In Barbara Cooney’s wonderful children’s book, Miss Rumphius, the Lupine Lady continues to fulfill her grandfather’s charge to, “…do something to make the world more beautiful.” She scatters lupine seeds across her landscape and advises her great nieces and nephews to find their own way to “…do something to make the world more beautiful.”
At Merry Mount, Rett strives to heed Miss
Rumphius’ advice and I hone my awareness to the Beauty around me. Rett’s hard work provides us with nourishment
for the body and for the soul.
We all
experience “soul moments” in life-
When we
see a magnificent sunrise,
Hear the
call of the loon,
See the
wrinkles in our mother’s hands,
Or smell
the sweetness of a bay.
During
these moments,
Our body,
as well as our brain,
Resonates
as we experience the glory
Of being
a human being.
-Marian Woodman
Let Beauty awake in the
morn from beautiful dreams,
Beauty awake from rest!
Let Beauty awake
For Beauty’s sake
In the hour when the
birds awake in the brake
And the stars are bright
in the west!
Let Beauty awake in the
eve from the slumber of day,
Awake in the crimson eve!
In the day’s dusk end
When the shades ascend,
Let her wake to the kiss
of a tender friend,
To render again and
receive!
-Robert Louis Stevenson
I leave you with this thought:
When the
Mind is absorbed by Beauty,
The Soul
is at Peace.
CPW
