WPC: Change

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“If you realize that all things change,

there is nothing you will try to hold on to.

If you are not afraid of dying,

there is nothing you cannot achieve.”

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Lao Tzu

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Change is the constant in our garden. 

We, like everyone else, watch the seasons come and go.  We watch for the first green leaves to push through the frozen soil in February.  We watch for the lizards to wake up in early summer, and for the butterflies to magically appear in the garden sipping from their favorite flowers.

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We watch for tender green leaves to unfold from bare stems and for those same leaves to yellow and fade, finally blowing away on autumn’s wind.

We witness ice flowers growing from a frozen stem with awe and wonder.

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“To see things in the seed,

that is genius.”

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Lao Tzu

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Yet gardening teaches us to work with change in deeper ways.  We work in longer cycles of time than the changing of a single season.

We weigh the potential of a site before ever moving in.  We build the soil over many seasons, nurturing those living microbes so tiny we will never see them.

We can visualize the vase of flowers inherent in a packet of seeds.  We see the tender petals already forming in a rough brown bulb.

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We plant trees, knowing it will take decades for them to mature, and that we may never taste their fruits.

Time is a constant in our algorithms. 

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We take into our accounts the potential of passing time.  We understand the richness of the wait.

Like thoughtful parents, we understand the profound power of love and attention.

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“Change will not come

if we wait for some other person,

or if we wait for some other time.

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

We are the change that we seek.”

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Barack Obama

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We inhabit this Earth for such a short time; and yet we are witness to uncounted change. 

We contemplate those fruits which ripened centuries before our birth.  Myths and paintings bear witness to those fruits and flowers of another age.

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We wonder how the span of our own lives might enrich the harvest in those years to come.

What seeds may we plant now, trusting them to still blossom and bear fruit in a future we can barely  imagine?

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“Become totally empty
Quiet the restlessness of the mind
Only then will you witness

everything unfolding from emptiness”

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Lao Tzu

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Perhaps some of us are drawn to gardening through our fascination with the process of change.

We can watch endless cycles of change play out  just beyond our doorstep.  Our garden is our laboratory, where we tinker with the unfolding of life itself.

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We watch and we listen, smelling the wind, noting the comings and goings of every thing as the seasons unfold.

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And perhaps, if we are very observant, we might learn a bit about life, and maybe even about ourselves.  What things will change; and what will seem immune from its endless transformations?

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Woodland Gnome 2015

For the Daily Post’s

Weekly Photo Challenge: Change

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About woodlandgnome

Lifelong teacher and gardener.

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