June 14, 2015

A cloudy summer day today. The rains in the last two days have beat up my peonies. The flowers have shed their million petals and the resulting  tricolor tapestry of pink, magenta and crimson design decorate the green grass below the plants. I know the next wind will erase the design that Mother Nature created. Replacing the colorful peonies, yellow primrose, white and pink penstimmon and purple and pink columbines have raised their stalks with glorious flowers.  On and on the flower show continues.

Every year when the weeding gets to me, or the rabbits eat all my petunias, I wow to stop planting any more petunias or eggplants. But summer comes and the colors in my garden make me forget the labor that goes into maintaining it.

The flip side is that the labor in my gardens keeps my body and my mind healthy. In my younger days I had many more roses because that is the only flower bush that blooms all summer long.

I will include my Vegetable garden philosophy here. Food for thought!

                                                                  My Vegetable Garden Philosophy

My vegetable garden symbolizes my philosophy in life.

Life need not be ordinary.

Hard work and ordinary chores are the necessary backbone of survival.

Yet, to limit ourselves into shaggy vegetable gardens is not needed.

 

The ordinary activities of life, even as the naturally unruly vegetable growth

can and should be glorified

by the beauty of paths that take you to nowhere—

but into our own selves.

 

Need a fountain or two keep our eyes upwards to

divert us from any tired and dead plants at end of autumn.

Need some rising colors of sunflowers and zinnias

to contrast with the browns of the aging spinach or the graying cucumber vines.

 

All this we need to help uplift the rising spirit of our souls

even as our aging bodies claim rest from our labors.

 

The beauty created by me in my vegetable garden

echos the beauty that I create in my life.

Amongst the mundane in our lives and amongst pain we cannot avoid,

we still cherish the smiling face of a sunflower or of a special smiling boy,

 

Enjoy a bear hug from a girl child

like hugs of a morning glory vine around a wooden post.

Cascading marigolds suggest the loud laughter of a tickled child

Red tomatoes on vines warm me the same as chubby red baby cheeks

 

Purple eggplants bring royalty to my stone throne

the beauty of life reflected, elevate me out of painful chores

Albeit, the chores are the backbone of survival

And oh so necessary for living!

 

Shakuntala Rajagopal

June 2015