Deep Gardening: Soul Lessons from 17 Gardens Preface—A Deep Map

I aim to convey what William Least Heat Moon called in his wonderful book PrairyErth a deep map of my 40-year career, the personal terrain underlying 17 gardens in almost as many states.  I’ll tell you as honestly as I can of the triumphs and failures that were there and what they meant to me.  Each garden is a node in a web of stewardship.  My energy is in it still, and its energy in me. HOW THE DEEP MAP WORKS: Picture our deep map with me.  Layers upon layers.  Unlike flat road maps, our garden maps come in 3-D.  Each layer is etched with words and mind pictures in a thick sheet of clearest glass and each positioned on top of another until we have a three-dimensional vision of shimmering, interpenetrating, shifting meaning. What does the garden mean…to me and through our common humanity to you?  To the workers and the eaters.  What does the garden mean in the landscape, in the multi-generational scheme of time?  What does it mean that we have changed the energy here in this place, and been changed by it? FIRST layer is the topography of the garden and the watershed in which it lies, for flowing water informs a place and if I tell you there is a stream rushing next to the garden you should see energy moving there in your mind’s eye, an edge of wild motion where anything can happen. What other features are there?  Which trees and wild plantings are there and what wildflowers and berries?   Its slopes and shady spots, outcrops, boundaries and secret places are there to be treasured.  How does the garden fit in with its surroundings: a village, a farm or ranch, a backyard? How does the energy flow?  SECOND is the social context: a family or perhaps a community supporting the garden and in turn being sustained by it; what other market does it serve, what are the economics of the situation? This can be as stark as a gardener working alone to pull a ton of carrots for a distant market, or as rich as cutting lettuce to feed a dozen farm families at dinner.  Every garden exists in a culture: does the culture nourish and sustain the garden and the gardeners? Or does it exploit and isolate them, failing to honor uniqueness and integrity? Terrence McKenna said, “The culture is not your friend,” but he was talking of the large culture.  Can we create small cultures for our gardens that nurture people and biome?  Yes we can.  I’ve seen it done, not often, but even one such culture is a model that radiates its influence forever. THEN THERE IS THE GARDEN IN TIME, the rich layering of seasons, how it was in winter and how it will be in high summer; in the upwelling growth of spring and the slow fading of light in fall.  The budding and flowering and gathering; the annuals and perennials in their separate and complimentary rhythms.  The trees over all, how are they there on the edge next to the garden, or within, bearing fruit and offering shade. Over decades, as boundaries and purposes and personnel evolve, how is it with the garden’s being. COME NOW THE LAYERS comprising the gardener’s observations in varying scales, from inspecting the underside of a single leaf or delving under a compost pile to see wormlings and bug eggs, examining mosses and insect wings—to scanning the wider landscape, seeking the visual and energetic harmony of the whole.  And even wider afield, to judge weather coming up the valley or off the mountain slopes at the horizon.  Shifts in scale, shifts in perception and consciousness are the among the gardener’s highest functions, for s/he is the eye and mind of God on the scene.  I can lose myself in a square inch of mosses or a flower structure that draws me in like a pollen-laden honeybee…there and back again for the sheer joy of it, and curiosity, to try to imagine what the world of the mosses or flowers means to the tiniest white spider or gnat I find there.  And listen!  There is a shift in awareness possible when we stop, close eyes, and listen…to the hum of bees, and birdsong, and murmuring growth.  Be quiet and hear the corn grow and the worms digesting.  Be the ears of the Goddess.  YET ANOTHER LAYER: the garden in its atmospheric and planetary surroundings, the influence of the moon and the other planets and, of course, the sun.  Its place in the wider biosphere, the etheric web.  What energies come to the garden with moon shadow and dew and frost?  What forces traverse the solar system to form my spinach and let it express itself.  How do air and fragrance and warmth flow through beds and hedges.  Rain…ah rain.  Why should I come in out of the rain when the plants don’t?     ADD COLOR TO THE LAYERS: the infinite shadings and hues of green manifesting there; the bright yellows and oranges of daffodils and winter squashes; the scarlet of runner bean flowers, tomato reds, the pink of dogwood blossoms; black and white and every hue between.  Swirl and spin the colors throughout like an artisan glass blower. THE SOIL with its own layers, the basis of it all.  The mulch with its cooling effect on top, and the moisture just there in the zone where worms work and transform mulch to soil, even bringing stems and leaves far down in their burrows. The compost-rich top inches where the first plant roots take hold and proliferate; and deeper roots penetrating further into the less-rich but differently-nourishing middle layers where there is less organic matter and more minerals; tap roots going even further into the untilled hardpan.  Let us honor soil as a rich and nurturing map of life itself.  THE PEOPLE of the garden, the workers: how they find themselves here and what motivates them. How do they respond to the tasks imposed by the garden?  How much do they perceive of what is here for them? Can they get out of themselves long enough, far enough, to see and hear and taste this place?  Can they climb out of mind and inhabit their fingers for a while? MORE PEOPLE OF THE GARDEN, the eaters: how they are nourished and how the energy of the garden, packaged as lettuce or cabbage or strawberries, moves in them.  How it disperses and evolves in the wider context. LAYERS INSIDE THE GARDENER: my journey toward competence and stewardship; inner training and insights on the personal level.  Virtues won and lost.  How the garden shapes human-ness and helps us approach the spirit. AND THE WRITER.  There is only this question: can I write truly?