Friday, August 22, 2014

Your Garden is Defiant Compassion

Your garden is a protest. It is a place of defiant compassion. That space is one to help sustain wildlife and ecosystem function while providing an aesthetic response that moves you. For you, beauty isn't petal deep, but goes down into the soil, further down into the aquifer, and back up into the air and for miles around on the backs and legs of insects. You don't have to see soil microbes in action, birds eating seeds, butterflies laying eggs, ants farming aphids -- just knowing it's possible in your garden thrills you, it's like faith, and it frees you to live life more authentically. Your garden is a protest for all the ways in which we deny our life by denying other lives. Go plant some natives. Be defiantly compassionate.

7 comments:

Kyla said...

Beautifully said. Thank you!

littlesundog said...

What poetic and moving prose! Just beautiful.

Benjamin Vogt said...

thanks for saying you guys!

Diana Studer said...

our neighbours spraying their poison, and we nurturing our wildlife. Fervently hoping that things work out, and the people who have built a bird feeder, WILL be the new guardians of our gardening for biodiversity.

Eddi said...

It is now October 23 and I have just found your blog. Your comments resonate with me right now as I spend some time in Florida encased in a gated community dedicated to preserving pristine lawns and golf courses. Strangely, it is also a dedicated Audobon reserve! Not quite sure how that is achieved.
Mostly I live on 11 acres in Ohio where I am free to never spray anything and can indulge my own passion for bein environmentally sensitive. Here in Florida I am face to face with gardens which must remain neat and tidy at all times or we will be in trouble!! Crazy world.
I am trying desperately to live by my own rules so my admiration for the efforts you and your wife are putting in, knows no bounds.
Incidentally, when visiting Paris recently I noticed a strong effort to plant as many pollinating plants as possible in the public parks. Very encouraging - and they looked beautiful.

Benjamin Vogt said...

Eddi -- we all have to keep fighting, and it is a fight, as love often is. Thanks for stopping by! If you're on Facebook, check out The Deep Middle and Milk the Weed.

Woodland Gnome said...

Benjamin, thank you for your visit to Forest Garden today. Your words here move me and you cut through the chatter to the truth of what we do. I've quoted you in my post: https://forestgardenblog.wordpress.com/2016/02/17/wednesday-vignette-defiant-compassion/ Best wishes, Woodland Gnome