About Me!

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Central, FL, United States
I am a former teacher, aspiring artist, inveterate traveler This blog is about my Florida garden experience and its expression though poetry, philosophy, photography and art. It includes my other creative endeavors. Here can be found posts about travel to other gardens around the world. My garden is a half acre in zone 9a which includes a large water garden. I have mostly a shade garden because of the huge live oak. To keep things easy, I love to grow bromiliads,ferns,gingers and other tropicals. I need to have a low maintenance garden. In the summer we usually have plenty of rain and it transforms into a jungle. I have converted my swamp into the water garden where I grow irises, waterlilies, papyrus, radigan, spikebush and swamp lily. I also grow citrus (lemon,key lime,grapefruit,tangerines,pineapple,and loquats). Me?...Often the prickly thorn produces tender roses. (Ovid)

Nov 17, 2012

sow shall you reap....of cabbages and kale


The blossoming of a flower is the time of   the revelation  of the secret  that every seed  contains.......


 Seeds, seeds, magical seeds ,they contain everything they need to know to become  a plant a huge as the Sequoia.  Inventive design lets them fly with wings (like maple seeds) and float on the breeze. The coconut can travel thousands of miles on the ocean current. 


the largest seed in the world

--the Ccoc-de- Mer 

 

Parable of the Sower at Canterbury Cathedral


Today I was  reminded of the parable of the sower.

 

"And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the birds of the air came and devoured it up. And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth: But when the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away. And some fell among thorns, the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit. And other fell on good ground, did yield fruit that sprang up and increased"
     The symbolism was referring to the knowledge of the spiritual word .They knew full well when cultivation began, that the soil must be fertile, the crop demands water, weeds must be pulled and fertilizer increases yield. And  I thought about the parable and how it relates to relationships as well. The seed of our connections yield fruits of our relationships.
 
Sometimes we meet people  they may have something in common, some need unmet but we will never know because they go by the way. Maybe others snap them up. Can we see past the stereotypes? Do we even know what gifts we are passing by? We never know what we missed.
 
We may meet others and feel a connection, the possibility and have good intentions.... ...but never take the time and imitative to share and develop the relationship (the lack of depth).  So when  the honeymoons over, it comes to a "rocky" quick end.
 
Then others grow well at the beginning. We feel the good earth of sharing, the sunshine of appreciation, and the cool water of hope and begin to connect souls (buds grow). But sadly, they are crowded out by the thorny trials of life, lack of cooperation (intimacy) and boredom...even the thorny wall of secrets and lies (lack of cultivation and elimination of the competition). Maybe we can't handle anothers needs. (no fertilizer) We end up with misunderstandings and excuses. And sadly, a beautiful bloom  fades away and all the potential "fruit" with it.
 
We have lost community here in the modern world, as we revel in privacy and isolation. Fear and selfishness makes us impotent . Those seeds of a fractured world yield unripe stunted fruit of disconnection. But sometime, just maybe only one time, if we are very lucky (or make our own luck)...we can grow the fruit called love for all our sacrifice and that's the sweetest and most beautiful fruit of all

 

 

Somewhere the flower of farewell is blooming.
Endlessly it yields its pollen, which we breathe.
Even in the breeze of this beginning hour we breathe farewell.--Rilke

This vine i lost due to lack of protection from cold and my severe pruning...



 


Here in Florida we have started our second growing season.Our commercial crop includes citrus, of course ,and strawberries  and tomatoes..but we grow lots of other things as well. I'm doing my regular basil, peppers and asparagus as well