It’s interesting that in religion and myths of the beginning of life on this planet, the “garden” is the starting point of civilization. I think most of us can relate to a love of a nice garden, a nice garden setting in which to relax, to sit in silence, to contemplate or visit with friends and family or just nature alone. The beauty of a nice garden is a transcendent experience.
I’ve always had a love of gardens, it’s part of my love of nature, beauty, mountains, lakes, oceans and spiritual encounters. I have enjoyed gardens from a young age. I remember being introduced to vegetable gardening in elementary school. My school had a nice garden and we got to work in it and grow crops. I noticed that these days the garden there is gone and has been paved over. I guess schools don’t do those types of activities any more. That’s sad.
At home as a kid, we had a large back yard and I got to plant my vegetable garden every year and I loved the experience of growing food we could eat. There was a long stretch of many years when I could not continue with my vegetable gardening, living in apartments and being too busy making a living, etc. I didn’t realize what I was missing until I had a yard again and my spouse-to-be asked if I liked to do vegetable gardening. That prompt got me back into the practice of growing food again.
Now that I’ve returned to my old childhood hobby of vegetable gardening I have started thinking about all the life lessons the garden gives us. It teaches us very subtly if we are aware and contemplate what our interaction with nature is all about. Leaving the big world out there and retreating to our secret garden is a spiritual retreat of sorts.
Our everyday world can be almost totally removed from the natural world, the world of nature, the world of God’s creation some would say. The world of God’s beauty and wonders. We allow big industry to produce our food, we never even have to think about where things come from, we just go to the store and buy whatever we want, whenever we want.
Now, I was thinking I was so original and creative in thinking about the lessons gardens teach us about life, but just for fun I googled “Lessons gardens teach us” and “the garden as a metaphor for life,” etc. and I was amazed how many blogs covered this topic in an excellent way. Better than I could, I thought. So maybe I’ll just state a few simple things I’ve learned along the way while tending my garden.
The things I have learned from having gardens are many. I have to first have a desire to grow a vegetable garden. No desire, no interest and nothing will happen. It is just a thought. Once I create the desire, then I have to do some planning. I have to think it all out, have a vision of what I want. I have to have some knowledge of the basics of gardening. I do my research for what I need to know. Relying totally on trial and error is not going to work out very well.
With a plan in mind, the seeds or plants must be purchased and the project is underway. I do the best I can in setting up the garden. The soil, the location and the space required are worked out . Once the project is underway, it takes continual attention if it is to be a successful garden. The watering needs must be taken care of daily or there will be problems. As time goes on, weeds will appear and at that time the decision must be made to rid the garden of weeds as they appear or if I decide to be lazy and not take care of them, they will take over and mess up my well laid plans for a successful harvest.
So, isn’t life a lot like this? Some people have no vision in life, they really have no plans, no desires, no commitments, no overall plan. They just drift through life and get caught up in this thing or that, this addiction or that bad habit. And when weeds appear in their life, they often just ignore them and they, the weeds, end up growing wild and taking things over. There is no maintenance in their life, no cleaning up, no weeding out what is not beneficial to a good life.
If the garden project is successful, a nice plentiful harvest is the wonderful (and tasty) reward. Life is good. We have learned how to produce success in life and enjoy it and share it with others. And, we can look forward to doing this again, repeating the success and possibly changing some of the crops, trying new things and seeing how it all goes from year to year.
As I’ve said, I’ve found several blogs on the internet covering this subject of how the garden is a metaphor for life, and they are very good. I’d recommend checking them out if you are interested. In this short essay I just wanted to give some of my ideas on the subject. I have learned a lot from my time over the years spent in the dirt growing my vegetables. It has been a great learning experience.
Wally