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More apocalypse, less angst
My cultivatation of wonder in the last year grew directly from my garden – the most literal of places. Which is a funny thing because though I’ve had many gardens over the years, I have often regarded them only as a means to an end. That is – I want food, so I grow it. I want the front of my house to look nicer, so I plant some perennials. And as disconnected as that seems, I have always done the necessary work to upkeep and tend my green charges, without thinking much about it.
But my efforts this time around have transformed something in me – which is perhaps related to the amount of time I spent setting up my backyard, and the attention I have given each variety of plant and weed being reared back there through two spring and summer seasons. In short, I have been rapt by it in 2010, by the pushing of the sprout from the seed and the seed from the earth. By the cycle of living and dying that happens over one week, one month, one season – the miracle of it really, that such a small bit of matter can become so great as a towering tomato plant. A speck of dust becomes fifty summer squashes pushed out on fecund impulse by life intent on coming again. Renewed by the seed spilled and fertilized by the leaves falling and rotting, by the shifts of soil and rain and freezing, tended by the human hands which have cultivated this life for thousands of years in order to sustain our own desires for abundance.
I have opened my eyes to the hyper-sexuality of it all – the glorious hidden center of the red rhubarb coy behind its large leaves, the flower opening greedily for want to insects to enter and rub up against its tender pistil, the bursting of seed onto soil or into the cupped hands receiving it in the creation of new life. Not to mention the shifting sun which brings into heat most plants and trees for a mere half year before dipping low and sending plants and animals alike into frigid hibernation. An erotic dance against the backdrop of time, this riot of life and colour is – and has become to me. Wonder indeed!
Red Cedar 
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