The discovery of planting was probably born of need but it couldn't have been long before the first gardeners, over 10,000 years ago, recognized that more than just an empty stomach was being fed. We know that, in time, the storytellers acknowledged the mysterious forces that gave them the gifts of seed and plant, of earth and water, the cycles of the seasons, and of the moon and sun. Humans gave these forces names and forms, and offered them thanks. These ancient but once-sacred stories - preserved for us only as statues of now-nameless grain goddesses-are lost to us but later sacred stories-of the Egyptian Isis and Osiris, the Greek Demeter, or the Native American Changing Woman-remind us that humanity has always understood the provenance of earth's gifts as sacral in nature.
Nature is who we are. there is no separation!
The awesome power of the seed-its literal and symbolic promise of life, renewal, growth, death- must have changed how human beings lived on the face of the earth and their spiritual understanding. sowing the seed permitted them to settle, farm, and claim land as their own. Introducing or maybe enhancing what they already knew or suspected that the rhythm of life was real. What could be more important than not only becoming aware of the ever-renewing cycle of nature but being a part of it. It had to change the individual, the collective consciousness- a potent metaphor for human resurrection, reflected in the much later custom of the ancient Greeks, who kept a pot of seeds representing the household's dead near the hearth.
The cycle of nature-the progress from seed to fruition to dying-off and then renewal in the spring-was mirrored in the wild fields and the garden alike, while the fragile harvest- the possible interruption of the cycle by drought, wind, or other natural calamities-established the pattern of how humans understood the workings of the cosmos. The oldest of surviving sacred stories have their roots in the garden and reflect how humanity sought to understand the changeable patterns of their world and, at the same time, to imagine a world no longer subject to change. It's no accident that our own word "paradise" comes from a Persian word for an enclosed garden.
Gardening also helps us come to terms with the cycle of human life. Many of us tend to see our lives as linear, moving from birth to death at opposite ends of the continuum, but the garden teaches another lesson entirely. In nature, beginnings and endings, birth and death, are inseparable: implicit in the flower's blooming is its dying -off as well as its eventual renewal. The perennials in our winter garden-dead above ground, still awake below-teach us about time and hidden mysteries. The withered annual is a symbol for the larger pattern that extends beyond us and our gardens: Seeds borne by the wind and birds bring small pieces of our lives into other places and other lives, making new, if unseen, connections. Planting seeds makes us active participants in the cycle of life, while tending our gardens teaches us about larger patterns of the cycles that are beyond our control. We learn patience from the long wait from planting to sprouting to blooming, as we learn acceptance when nature takes its own course. We gain humility when we catch a true glimpse of the extraordinary complexity of the natural world.
So where we are, with all of these experiences to be shared; our lives are enriched when we understand that the seeds in our hands are the promise of tomorrow. With all of our senses engaged, seeing becomes understanding in the garden. Just as the medieval monks could see God's presence in His handiwork and could make it the starting point for a meditation, so too, we are learning to go into the garden to glimpse the "larger pattern"- regardless.
