The Garden as Prayer

Every morning I water our garden.

I knew before beginning that I would have an affinity toward this assignment. Any time I spend in nature is time I feel abundantly grateful for. I am also one who longs for quiet mornings, so to find an hour each day dedicated to nature, morning stillness, and the forced application of petrichor on the air brings a bliss about me that’s difficult to explain.

And that’s why I write, I suppose. To attempt.

I’ve only been at this practice about a week and it’s been remarkable to watch the garden become an entity unto itself. Changing, growing, claiming, fading. I believe I started at the most opportune time. The apple trees and cherry blossoms were just beginning their bud, and the little personalities who push up from the earth were just beginning to peek their heads through.

I didn’t mean to, but it didn’t take long for me to begin naming and speaking to the plants.

Each morning I start in the same corner of the garden and work my way around.

I begin with a patch of ferns, tightly coiled at first, now expanding into giant palms, whom I refer to as The Ladies. “Good morning, ladies,” I offer alongside the first spritz of the hose.

They seem to have a peckish energy to them. Henning about, intertwining with one another’s business. They are beautiful in a way that took effort, and they seem to know it, spreading long and wide into available sunlight. The way they curl open reminds me of a damsel waking after a long magical sleep, rising and unfurling with grace and beauty. Once awakened, they seem to know the gossip about town, and they will not cease taking up space. No one desires them to.

The Ladies know their worth, and it shows.

Small Hostas peak up through the stones and anywhere sunlight is made available by the Ladies. Coy but firm, they feel like youngsters. Poking through with a shy but with excitement. In honesty, I don’t know what these littles will become. I purposefully do not look it up. Some things are better left as surprise gifts. They will grow slowly but with eager energy, eventually becoming strong and large. They feel protected by the surrounding vegetation. I encourage them that they are safe and loved.

At the centre of this plot of soil is the largest specimen in the garden: the Crone. An oak tree that was here long before these homes and, with luck, will be here long after. She doesn’t seem to have a name. She is older than names. She simply is, in her presence and watchful, towering knowing.

I imagine how deep her roots extend into the earth. How her reach likely touches every corner of this modest yard. Every plant connected to her, held by her, through a network of mycelium fascia. She is the mother and grandmother and great-grandmother. Her wisdom of the seasons, of change, of growth, is etched into the deep crevices of her bark.

As the cherry blossoms begin to shed their magenta, the Crone begins to bud her distinctively shaped oak leaves. I imagine she waited to exert the energy needed to bud, in exchange for admiring the flower offering of her cherry and pear cousins. But now that their ritual is over, she extracts what she needs from the soil and begins her rebirth. Her bright green canopy only now beginning to take significant shape over the small plot of land.

She is kind. I can feel it. She’d be lovely to sit with on a porch and share a hot tea.

A sentry of White Cedar trees lines the fence behind her. Steadfast and sure, they are grounded solid in the land. Protecting the small garden from the elements. They do not look much different than during the winter months, their tough needled exterior keeping pace with the seasons. And yet, to the trained eye, you can begin to see them puff out their chests. Swelling in size ever so slightly. Bellies full of water and sunshine.

Masculine in nature, they smell of the woods: of spice and warmth. Their gift is one of my favourite scents. Reminding me of the north shores of Lake Superior. Briefly sending me home in my heart.

I’m grateful.

There are bushes that will one day carry berries for us to feast upon. Still looking ragged, they will be late to the parade. Late only in the sense that comparison matters, which it doesn’t. They’ll bloom exactly when they’re supposed to, because that’s their nature.

The metaphor hits me harder than I expect it to.

We bloom when we’re meant to. We cannot force these things. More water and more sun will only damage the process. And if everything bloomed in the same week, we wouldn’t be able to enjoy it all. The Creator of this tapestry has paused in consideration of this.

I’m grateful for that also.

Lined against the garage are boxes dedicated to the delicate delicacy that are tomatoes. Multiple varieties; Roma, Cherry and Beefsteak, I find them all in bud. Tiny, meek yellow flowers punch their way past the large sweeping leaves of the stalk.

I find it interesting that these three plants have chosen to bloom together. Distant cousins in genetic makeup and yet, as though in communication with one another, they present their canary posy almost simultaneously.

A small stone path leads me around a walking cul-de-sac lined with the fruit trees. When I began a week ago, they were vibrant and intoxicating. The sweet scent of vanilla on the air and the electric white and pink of their blossoms. I pause in awe.

It’s difficult for me to fathom that these plants annually explode into an ecstatic expression of saturation. A divine courtship with nature. A yearning-filled romantic inception of procreation. A full surrender of erotic ethos painted in electric palettes.

Nature is the ultimate seductress. I am not the subject of her desire, and yet even I am pulled into her embrace. Her scent causing me to move as close to her as I can.

Today the ground at her feet is filled with those petals, like a silk pink dress she wore now settled on the floor around her ankles. She stands bare and will soon be with child.

I am without words for her most days. I simply admire and ensure she’s fed.

The garden closer to the home hosts rose and hydrangea bushes. Both slow to begin their journey toward bloom. They appear as twigs, resting still as they gather nutrients into their bellies. One day they will both begin their own dance. I eagerly await that morning.

And I am also grateful that I have an offering to look forward to.

I water them both now, trusting they will grow. I can’t say for certain they will. I do not know the inner workings of each stem. But I know that my showing up today ensures they can be birthed in the future.

Another metaphor writhes its way into my mind: the work today yields results tomorrow. Trust is needed in most every sacred act.

I turn to the last section of the garden. The last stop on my tour. There have been many persons I have encountered along the way. Each of them changing each morning. Growing taller, fatter, lusher.

I take immense pride in their growth. I feel my contribution to be barely enough, but the proof is in their vibrancy.

One of my favourite personalities, and my last stop, is a wiry cedar tree I’ve affectionately named Larry. He, unlike his sentinel counterparts, has grown toward the sky in wobbles and curves. I imagine he was transplanted here from Whoville. His top peak especially turns and curls with whimsical coil.

While he seems to be growing strong, his entire left side hosts a rough brown splotch that looks unhealthy. I do not know enough about this species to know the truth, but the needles have mostly abandoned their post, and what’s left is dark brown and dry.

Though his look is whimsical, his energy is disgruntled. He feels like the Eeyore of the garden.

I ask him each morning how he is feeling, and his response always resembles the adage: “Same day. Same shit.”

Larry feels the world is against him. He feels his patch is an eyesore and that he is ugly because he is not beautiful.

I water him a little extra and remind him that he is perfect exactly as he is. In fact, I often prefer the caprice of his trunk, the tilt of his tip, the brown in a sea of green. There is beauty in all of it. Even his personality.

He rolls his proverbial eyes, but I think he feels at home here. And that’s what matters most.

It wasn’t until several days later, curiosity finally pulling at me, that I looked up what species Larry actually is. I uploaded a photo and waited for the results.

Weeping Cedar.

I had to read it twice.

A weeping cedar. Not just a tree with a quirky form, but a tree born to weep. A tree whose very nature is to droop and curve and bend under the weight of its own being. A tree that carries melancholy in its botanical blueprint.

I’d named him Larry before I knew. I’d felt his truth before I understood it. And I’d been telling a weeping tree that it was perfect exactly as it was, without realizing how literal that statement needed to be.

Some trees are meant to stand tall and proud. Larry was never going to be that tree.

But he’s a weeping cedar. And weeping cedars are extraordinary precisely because they weep. Their drooping grace is their gift. Their cascading form is not a defect to overcome but a feature to behold.

I like to hope I can convince Larry of this over time.

I find it no coincidence that when I was given this task, I just so happened to be reading Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Robin is a Native American biologist steeped deeply in both Aboriginal wisdom and the rigorous study of science. Throughout the book, she explains her people’s relationship to the plants that surround them.

And when I mean relationship, I mean true relationship. Intimate, alive, intentional, ceremonial. The relationship you’d have with a friend or loved one. They are plant persons with whom we interact, not objects to be used at our will.

This book is an absolute gift.

It’s raining today, and will likely rain the next few days. Eliminating the need for my morning devotion. And even though I know my friends are being well tended to by the clouded skies, I can’t help but miss them.

Maybe I am being fed more by their presence than I realize.

Maybe this act of watering the garden is more reciprocal than I’ve allowed myself to believe. All I know is each day, when my duty is fulfilled, I feel more full.

What we feed feeds us.

I am forever grateful for the Mother Earth we call home, and may we all find ways to acknowledge what we receive and find ways to give.