P6: Gardens

 When I was 24 I had a stroke that left me temporarily paralyzed on the entire left side of my body.   I was in the hospital for two weeks and literally had to learn to walk again.  A friend of mine at San Francisco State came to visit me while I was there, and suggested I come work with him at the landscape company where he was employed. He thought it would provide excellent physical therapy, and I agreed. I stayed with that company for 5 years, and completed my apprenticeship to become a landscape contractor.   I didn't know it at the time but this would mark the beginning of my spiritual education, and the introduction to what would ultimately become my life's work.  

I loved everything about landscaping. I loved that it was a vocation, not a degree. I loved the autonomy. I loved the physical nature of the work. I loved being outdoors for every season of the year. I loved nurturing, and being in stewardship with living things. Most of all, I loved the creativity of transforming a patch of dirt into a spiritual space that brought solace to another person.  I was very proud of my ability to do that.  And I loved that I could hang a single flyer in any town I chose to live and generate an income.

This page contains images of some of the gardens I designed and installed.  When it's time for me to leave this earth there will be landscapes from Marin and Butte Counties in the north, to Los Angeles and Orange Counties in the south, and Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties in between whose origins came through me, and whose continued growth was entrusted to others.  That lineage is the lineage of the natural world.  It's the agreement made by all living things in exchange for the granting of a life. It's a wonderfully humbling thing to be part of, and mirrors parenthood in a way.  Both allow, and encourage, your influence in the initial molding of the clay. If life occurs in its chronological order both will also prohibit you from determining the shape that clay grows into, and finally becomes.  That influence will be found elsewhere. 

All growth begins with the assistance of others, and continues with out end.   It truly is a cycle.  Gardening taught me that.  It's the seed that roots in dirt that bursts into bloom that wilts and dies and becomes soil again. One continuous thread of energy manifesting in a parade of ever changing shapes and forms.  If you need me you don't have to look far.  I'm with you, inside you, in the same place you are with me.  I'm in every garden that has ever grown.   I'm in every heart I've ever known.  We all are.