Gardens of the mind

Sometimes it amazes me that I live in an old factory on the lot line and have NO dirt in which to make the world bloom!  I’m certain it is what compels me to paint meadows, gardens, grasses, anything alive and growing.  My memories of gardening in Bellingham and San Juan Island, WA are never far from my mind as the weather warms and I hear the birds outside my studio.  I often “see” the peek-a-boo view of water that I imagine my son sees from his idyllic land.  I can feel the soil crumble, smell the musky earth, the mix of blossoming flowers, berries, new greens…mmmmm…and so I create my own gardens, or just express the gardens within.  It is a joyous act, like a song….me and the birds tasting the berries……..

 

The mind/body connection feels more like the mind/body stream at times like this.  What could we be/do/feel/see if the connection was always the stream?

What would it be like if you opened your door one day and all the blooms in your garden lay dead on the ground?  Puzzled, anxious, perhaps you would turn in a breath and head for your computer for answers.  And then, exhausted after a day of searching the internet and the gardening stores with no luck, you climbed into your bed hoping for a better day tomorrow.  Tomorrow arrives.  You jump into your cothes and hurry, throwing open the door.  No!  All green and growing things have fallen.  Up and down the road tree trunks stand as naked skeletons, birds fly frantically trying to guard their chicks exposed in their nests.  No one has an answer.  Some drop to their knees in prayer and supplication.  Others clatter at their keyboards, some resort to pulling volumes from the shelves, searching, searching, searching.  Only some can see the pieces of their souls flaking away.  

I think people on the Gulf Coast stand in their doorways, facing their gardens. 

Syed and I will be on Hilton Head Island, SC this weekend – come see us at the Hilton Head Island Festival at Shelter Cove .