GARDENING

Gardening is how I celebrate my relationship with Mother Earth. In my garden I get to interact and co-create with this beautiful living, breathing being and can love and appreciate her in a very personal way. My herb garden was my first attempt at establishing this relationship. The small water fall and mini pond is an open invitation to birds, chipmunks, frogs, worms, bugs, and thousands of other creatures who share the patch of earth that I tend to quench their thirst on the hot, dry days of the Virginia summers. Occasionally deer come by to feast on the Hostas, and I have seen a red fox chasing squirrels or running through the yard in broad daylight, who twice, stopped to check me out for a minute. I once saw a huge black crow, swoop down and catch a baby squirrel, and fly off with the tiny ball of fluff in its beak. Seasons come and go. Flowers bud, bloom, fade and die. Seeds fall to the ground and new life will appear in the Spring. The dramas of life and death have played on and on since the beginning of time and space. Here in the microcosm of my my garden, I get to watch, learn, and know that we are all participating in Earth's process according to universal order.



Photo:Suchinta Abhayaratna