Life is a process ~~ always beginning ~~ -- emerging, opening, changing, transforming -- ~~ beginning again~~ . . . and it takes Time.
BEGIN
DARE
OPEN
BLOOM
TRANSFORM
BE GENEROUS
And these words by Mary Oliver about her friend, the great poet & devoted gardener Stanley Kunitz
STANLEY KUNITZ by Mary Oliver I used to imagine him coming from the house, like Merlin strolling with important gestures through the garden where everything grows so thickly, where birds sing, little snakes lie on the boughs, thinking of nothing but their own good lives, where petals float upward, their colors exploding, and trees open their moist pages of thunder -- it has happened every summer for years. But now I know more about the great wheel of growth, and decay, and rebirth, and know my vision for a falsehood. Now I see him coming from the house -- I see him on his knees, cutting away the diseased, the superfluous, coaxing the new, knowing that the hour of fulfillment is buried in years of patience -- yet willing to labor like that on the mortal wheel. Oh, what good it does the heart to know it isn't magic! Like the human child I am I rush to imitate -- I watch him as he bends among the leaves and vines to hook some weed or other; even when I do not see him, I think of him there raking and trimming, stirring up those sheets of fire between the smothering weights of earth, the wild and shapeless air.
Sharing Trickster's Hoard 
I am going to copy here a comment that I made on grace’s blog, windthread this morning for it is so in sync with your post here Margery and the above poem. grace wrote about the work she does in caring for her garden soil.
https://windthread.typepad.com/windthread/2023/04/my-entry-20.html#tpe-action-posted-6a0134853dab69970c02b751a1ca2f200c
My response:
“not half ass”- yes, how it takes consistent work to create a garden, it does not happen instantly.To bring soil to its fullness, its ripeness, requires not magic but understanding, dedication, knowledge, day in and day out…How if we want our gardens to nurture us, we first must respect and learn to nurture the soil, develop its goodness and that to me, is Spirit combined with common sense.
My dear Dad taught me this as the first lesson of getting my hands in the dirt. I can still see him when it came time to begin a new year of gardening. How he took his shovel and turned over the dirt, smiling, even humming to himself. As for the term Spirit that I used here, well my Dad had a quirky ritual that he did every time it was time to plant. After the soil was turned, before he leveled it to put seeds in, he took his bota bag and sprinkled a bit of wine into the dirt. He would get this mischievous grin, turn to me and say, “this is the holy water for my garden!”
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This story is profound & went straight to my heart. When it arrived, I was putting together another post and had just written “What and where are our current stories and ceremonies to open this bridge?” between human animals and our other-than-human kin. All our relations — animals, plants, soil, and more. Your father’s ceremony is exactly that bridge — and with a “mischievous grin”! Sometimes we need to take ourselves less seriously. That’s what Trickster keeps trying to teach me. And now I’m grinning from ear to ear! Thank you so much!
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