Gardens and weeds

[Guest guest]

KV wrote:

 

"... the Celestial Gardner will come to pull out the weeds...."

 

I don´t have the original text any more... but remember the idea ...

 

The poet laureate W.H. Auden wrote in his poem "Yasmin",:

 

"Them comes the Gardener to gather flowers-

And gathered flowers are dead, Yasmin!"

 

I once lived for a short while, temporarily, in a small house with a relatively

big garden. One condition for my getting the house for a few months only was

that I would keep the garden in order - and I had no experience in that at all!

But the owner said it was easy, he would come along and show me what to do. I

rented the house in winter, garden covered in snow, a few twigs sticking out.

Parting words from landlord: "Wait till the snow starts melting, or the ground

will be too hard and frozen for you to pull anything out! There are some rare

species, like some daisies, in there, and I don´t want them destroyed!"

 

Snow melted, I pulled out what was dead. Mowed what little lawn there was. But

things started coming out of the ground, tiny plants that had pushed stones and

earth aside to greet the sun. Each one was lovely. I waited, called the guy to

come and help me. He kept finding excuses for not coming. The plants grew and

grew. I couldn´t differentiate desired plant from weed and didn´t know which

were special species! It looked wild and unkempt, but I loved them all! Look at

the flowers of the weeds thru a lens: they are no less beautiful than roses!

 

Finally I had found a more suitable accommodation and the owner came to take

over the house again. Fell into a rage, accused me of having neglected the

garden pitifully! It ended peacefully, after I explained my problems and point

of view: the neglect could be rectified, but not my "weeding out" the good ones.

 

Many is the time I have thought about this: When the Celestial Gardener comes,

will he see in me a weed or a desired plant? I found the weeds beautiful and let

them live. Will he not do the same? Perhaps he will say, "This is not the right

place for you, I´ll give you a different corner of my acre!" and re-plant me in

a biotope! Perhaps he will just rip me out and throw me onto the compost heap,

to diintegrate and be manure for new plants. But even then, I hope he will let

only my body rot, but transplant my soul!

 

It is up to him to decide, but I will never be able to find the weeds amongst my

fellow human beings! Even the nestle has its beauty and plucked at the right

time, is delicious and healthy.

 

The diversity in creation is a wonder indeed. You turn up a flat sone in the

garden and see a lot of "disgusting" creatures crawling and wriggling under it!

If you do regular gardening you handle all these with your fingers, after a time

they are not disgusting. If you then read about them or see a documentary about

what each of these ugly creatures does for the earth, you start loving them,

respecting them!

 

The awe before creation was expressed by the mystic poet William Blake thus:

 

"Tiger, tiger, burning bright

in the forests of the night!

........

Did He who made the gentle lamb

frame thine awful symmetry?"

 

The hiding of goodness and beauty is a lila of the Mother. The poet Gray wrote:

 

"Many a gem of purest ray serene

the dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear!

Many a flower is born to blush unseen

and waste its fragrance in the desert air!"

 

 

In the Book Of Job, God asks Job, "For whom did I make the wild ass in the

desert, whom no man can tame?"

 

When I lived in the semi desert of Arabia it rained one day! I was excited,

hoped to see a wonder. Waited 4 days, borrowed a landrover, and equipped with a

lens, drove out into the barren, hilly desert. I was rewarded. In the wadis -

dry arroyos of log lost rivers, there, where no visible life had existed only a

few days ago, there were little oases, bits of paradise. All sorts of plants had

grown and had even produced tiny flowers. Thru my lens I saw mini-roses, dahlias

..... Beautiful - and many with sweet perfumes. Wild camels were grazing there,

the air was full of insects and tiny butterflies.

 

I went there every day after work. Two weeks later, all was gone, only dry

petrified coral and granite was to be seen, mostly covered by dry sand. Where

did they all go, the plants and insects? Where did they come from, to start

with, so soon after it rained? How did they vanish without leaving a trace of

their existence, not even a dry stalk or dead worm?... I am sure this happens in

Arizona too!

 

The French poet Villon wrote in his ballad for beautiful women,

 

" Where is Helen, where Messalina

......

 

Where are the snows of yesteryear?"

 

Man, as child of the Mother does this too, hides his masterpieces from the

common eye! Saw a movie about expeditions in central asia. In most inaccessible

caves, some sealed off, they found wonderful sculptures and frescoes, complete

libraries of books! Some dating back over 2000 years!

 

One visits Greek temples. Usually there is a corridor of pillars at the

periphery. Just take the Parthenon in Athens. This corridor is very very high,

but its width relatively small. Within the corridor you can only look up

practically vertically, and at the top, above pillar level, you see sculptures.

You can just make out that they are reliefs, but cannot make out any details at

all. The tourist moves on to better objects. But if you look up thru a pair of

binoculars, you will be rewarded indeed! The reliefs are perfect, eyelashes and

fingernails are carved, the mouths are smiling, the eyes are reflecting joy.

Whoever the sculptors were, they must have known that their work would never be

seen properly by the visitors to the temple. How many possessed binoculars? The

architects had understood the laws of perspective vision thoroughly, carefully

calculated every bit of the edifice to invoke piety, yet please the eye, even

with some false illusions! So the sculptor did not do his perfect job out of

stupidity: it was a labour of love, to be discovered by those who seek!

 

If Andy Warhol found beauty in a tin of soup, it was because he was a seeker

after beauty - and truth!

 

There is much written about kaliyuga. I think these are only false perspectives.

We do not deteriorate, but the trials, the exams, get harder - because we, you

and I, have passed the previous ones! We are forced to play meaner roles, so

others learn the harder lessons. We only take turns in learning and playing the

mean coyote! The final pralaya will not affect us: it only means closing of

schools, for all have graduated. And on these school grounds we will plant

gardens and lay out playgrounds.

 

love

Mani

 

Ps. Krishna said he was a poet, a "Kavi". But he is also "Kapi" a monkey: he

plays pranks, is full of mischief and laughter! We laugh when we are tickled,

but must learn to laugh when we are kicked!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

regards

Mani

[Guest guest]

namaste!!

excellent reading matter!

do send us this kind of reading material, when ever

relevant.soul stirring and soothing!

thanks

 

rhoda

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

Rhoda Reporter wrote:

> namaste!!

> excellent reading matter!

> do send us this kind of reading material, when ever

> relevant.soul stirring and soothing!

 

Glad you liked it. Feel guilty when I write long about non-astrlogical things.

BTW the poem I quoted re. Gardener: I said the poet was Auden, but now I think

it was Yeats. Read it 50 years ago, remember only these two telling lines. The

whole poem was beautiful, though.

 

regards

Mani