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A section of my sister’s beautiful garden. Photography:
Vasino Yoho
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My sister, the passionate gardener, has been super busy these
past couple of weeks. She decided to go for a full scale reorganisation of her
flower and vegetable gardens this year….rearranging certain sections, shifting
and shuffling flower beds, general landscaping all around and so on. The soil
is soft with these first rains and easy to work on, now is the right time, she
had announced some days ago, and since then it’s been all available hands on
deck for the major operation that best be finished before the real monsoon
downpour begins. Thankfully, that kind of activity is beyond my scope now
otherwise I might have been a little reluctantly roped in too.
You guessed it right! Unlike my sister, working the good
earth is really not my thing. Oh, I do enjoy planting the odd green plant and
watching it grow, but it’s usually those hardy types that can basically take
care of itself as long as I don’t forget to water it for too long. I just don’t
have the right temperament to get into any kind of committed gardening……..not
enough patience in me to look after flowers and plants that require regular pampering
and plenty of TLC to thrive.
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Pretty flowers all in a row. Photography: Vasino Yoho
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All these gardening activity around me has reminded me of
how good and giving our earth is. It provides for our every need in abundance……life
giving water from lakes, streams and rain, fresh air to breath, bountiful
healthy nourishing food. The earth knows how to take care of all living things
that inhabit it; it is so good to us.
Then there is the staggering beauty that surrounds us. And
how can one not be deeply touched by the wondrous miracle of the changing seasons?
But humans have not been kind to it. We have abused, looted
and destroyed. The Bible tells us that God made man in His own image and gave
him dominion over all earth and everything in it. We have clearly not been very
wise in exercising this authority bestowed upon us.
And yet, the earth continues to give as it patiently waits
for us to mend our ways. But for how much longer? This patience may run out very
soon and we’ll have only ourselves to blame.
There’s a children’s grace that goes like this:
“Earth, who gives to us this food, Sun, who makes it ripe
and good,
Dearest Earth, dearest Sun,
We won’t forget what you have done.”
If we can all make this our prayer too perhaps we will
become a little more mindful of our actions and attitude towards earth. It
would also bode us well to remember the wise words of Mahatma Gandhi:
Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's
greed.
These pearls of wisdom by great men and women are really great
sources of inspiration, aren't they? So, let me end this piece with another one by Chief Seattle
- Whatever befalls the earth befalls the people of the earth. Man did not
weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it