[ back ]
Gardening as Spiritual Practice
(by Alexandra Heath - August 09, 2010)
Voltaire in his work entitled Candide suggests at the conclusion that We should all cultivate our own gardens. But other than growing food, engaging in exercise and having the satisfaction of providing for some of your basic needs, what can or does gardening do for those who engage in working the soil?
Perhaps more than anything else it provides us a place and time for spiritual practice. In many faiths, such intangibles as faith, hope and love are important aspects to human development and moral evolution. Each of these intangibles becomes a spiritual act as soon as you get your hands dirty and stick a few seeds in the ground.
First, planting is in and of itself an act of faith. When you grab a package of seeds from the display at your local nursery, or order from a seed supplier, you trust (have faith) that the seeds will perform exactly as you expect. You have faith that the seeds are viable and will grow when you plant them. You have faith that the seeds will grow into the fruit, vegetable, herb or flower that is pictured on the front of the package. And not only that. After all, melon seeds look pretty much the same, but you probably purchased a particular variety of melon, and you have faith that rather than any ol melon, youll harvest a Orange Flesh Honeydew or a Honey Rock Cantaloupe or a Moon and Stars Watermelon.
Hope is essential for a gardener. We hope that the soil is fertile enough to support plant growth. We hope that it will rain when we need it to and the sun will shine every day during the fruiting season and that it will be neither too hot or too cool. We hope that the snails or the rabbits or the aphids or whatever pest loves the garden will not decimate the harvest. Hope, however, goes hand in hand with actions that we may take to ensure that our hopes arent dashed. So we work to increase soil fertility and tilth by composting; we try as many methods as we can to keep the pests as bay. And, while we may complain about the weather and have no visible control over the elements, we build greenhouses, string up shade cloth, place hot caps over vulnerable crops and may even use a coldframe to give us a edge, to keep hope alive.
If we look at the Christian scriptures, we find in I Corinthians a verse that reads, There are then these three: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. Beyond anything else, gardeners learn to love—the dirt, the sun and rain and wind, the birds, bees, insects and other critters that enliven the garden and work as co-creators by keeping harmful pests at bay, the simple act of gathering in the harvest, knowing that the work of your hands has provided sustenance for you and your family.
Interestingly, just as faith and hope are not emotions but rather qualities of a persons spirit or character, love is also not an emotion. Karla McLaren in her book entitled The Language of Emotions, states that love is a steadfast promise that repeats itself endlessly through life and beyond death. So when we garden, we engage in a constant unwavering love affair with the very stuff of life—soil, plants, animals, the great unending cycle of life—birth, growth, maturity, death. Many times we find in that interaction—between ourselves and the ever-changing and multi-layered garden--the answers to the questions that most perplex our hearts and minds. We discover our own place in the whole scheme of things and we learn how to give and take so that everyone wins. We learn compassion—the ability to feel for others even though they may not be human (or even sentient!) We learn to silently and patiently regard our souls.
Finally, we become aware of what we as humans really are—a part of nature and not separate from it. If we are wise, we learn to take our place as conscious co-creators in the act of living. And, more than anything else, we learn to love all of life in its vast and mysterious complexity and to know that we are not—and never have been--alone.
[ back ]
