Walking to the Other Side
Please note: Thank you for visiting my Cottage Garden topic and reading my columns, published here from February 1997 through spring 2003! This Cottage Garden column was written by Barbara M. Martin and is Copyrighted by Barbara M. Martin. It may not be altered or copied or published elsewhere in whole or in part without specific permission from the author. I regret I am no longer actively editing or contributing to this suite101.com topic as of mid-2003. Happy Gardening!
Nothing like the edge of a millennium to make us think about the passage of time and the effects of time and the process of time. No matter if its steps are marked by sundial or atomic clock or simply the tides, there is a cycle and a continuum.
Seasons need no clock. Seasons come and go not exactly like clockwork, as they say, but close enough. The increments are close enough for the natural world to know what to do to get along and to survive in its own place, in its own time and way. Plants, by their alignment with the earth's rotation and the seasons, link seamlessly with this space-time continuum.
Gardeners are aware of the seasons in the way we would expect of farmers although for most gardeners the growing season does not make or break the family finances or make the futures market. Gardeners notice things like rain and frost, the daily nips and niggles of weather. Ask good gardeners when the last time it rained was and they'll tell you.
So often in our time now, our time of indoor climate control and busy door to door car travel, we lose that touch with the earth's rhythms and calls. We'll know virtually all about a hurricane thousands of miles off, but we won't know our own ground, unless we dig into it purposely with our fingers or maybe poke it with the clean toe of our walking shoe.
When is the last time you did that?
Here we walk on pavement, not soil. We follow the front walk and miss that literal connection with the natural life all around us. And when we do step on the bare ground we distance ourselves from it with foot wear intended to protect or insulate our bodies. That's not necessarily a bad thing in mid-winter, but it does keep us apart.
Would it be any different if we walked softly every day?
Perhaps we would notice the frost fairy's crystals dancing in the garden; celebrate the quiet blooms on the vernal witchhazel; and then one warmer day we'd sense the buds of the forest and lane beginning to swell on bare twigs. I think I can smell that, on the day it starts.
Go To Page: 1 2
Articles in this Topic Discussions in this Topic
Latest Articles