On philosophy in the garden

Part of the reason for my interest in gardening is the search for a philosophy of life. My father gave me and old book: “Introduction to Philosophy” by George Thomas White Patrick, Ph.D. (1924). In it, Patrick gave several definitions of philosophy, but the most intriguing is “wonder which has turned to serious and reflective thought.”

Wonder is exactly what I feel about the garden. It’s an excellent test lab to observe the wonder of nature in greater detail, but a backyard garden never diminishes amazement of nature… in fact with the garden acting as  a magnifying glass on the beauty, simplicity and complexity of nature… amazement (and wonder) only grows.

The daily grind of human life pulls us into a very self-involved place. I worry about money to pay for the house and ensure a good education for my children, but in that myopic view it is easy to forget about the beauty and simplicity of life itself– until I head out back.

The garden grounds me and gives me a tool to help my children learn to become grounded by becoming involved in the process of life through the simple acts involved in gardening: observe, turn the dirt, pull the weeds, nurture and enjoy observing again.

Patrick also observes that humans invented philosphy as a way of defining things that are different from those empirical scientific things that can be observed and defined with laws. We ask for the reasons why and look for meaning:

Tomorrow I shall do many things. Some of them will be right and some wrong. What is right and what is wrong? All about me I see men striving for money, fame and pleasure. Are these really the highest values, or are there other values that are higher and better, such as peace, simplicity, faith, love, work, the enjoyment of art, the pursuit of science? What is most worthwhile? -Patrick Introduction to Philosophy p.3-4.

Finding out what is most worthwhile is an individual pursuit. Every individual must take up this pursuit or, I believe, life will be without value. It is how we take up the pursuit of meaning in life, of philosophy, that varies from person to person.

For me, gardening is a direct and easily understood path to examining the meaning of life. My husband calls it ‘puttering.’ Very apt. A boat that putters along a river’s edge is guided by a person who is in no hurry, and so doesn’t miss much. Little does my husband know that spending a half an hour examining broccoli leaves for cabbage worms or checking the bean vines to see how the growing pods are progressing benefits everyone within the living zone around the garden. Heck, it’s a little contribution to the karma of the whole world.

Puttering in the garden is my way of pulling out of my own personal hamster wheel of checklists, concerns, anxieties and so-called productive preparation for the tasks involved with the daily grind. But I also believe philosophy in a garden is “catching.” Everyone who lives beside a garden is taken in to some extent. The brilliance of life is compelling. A perfect bloom, a ripe fruit, a rogue pumpkin… ahhhh…. so good to know life is at ease in its beauty and complexity.   

It is at these times I can experience a natural settling and calm that puts priorities back into a sensible order. Part of what I am seeing rising to the top during my gardening moments is a realization that my greatest contribution while I am here won’t have anything to do with my list of career accomplishments, it will be what lessons I can pass on to my children simply by putting a garden in our backyard and asking them to enter it and look around. Encourage them to develop a sense of wonder.

By learning to disconnect from work tasks and re-connecting with the simplicity of life and nurturing an admiration for what nature can do– Human attempts to make money and grow a consumer base and whatnot seem like silly practices– for a moment or two.

It takes a little work on my part to stop the natural tendency to make the philosophy garden part of the business of humanity: another category to lecture my children about, to talk them through what it all means, or even instruct them on how they can become concerned adults who grow to ask those questions. I’m an over-thinker at times, an impulsive over-teacher. These are lessons that have to be learned first-hand… not poured in with a funnel.

In the garden, it comes naturally. Buddhists say that the learner and the teacher together make the teaching. I think this is the true definition of teaching. Showing a child that life is a magical thing that happens on its own (in spite of us at times), but thrives when we care– is perhaps one of the most valuable things they can learn. But I can’t teach them that… I can only wonder at it and bring my children into the place where wonderment happens. They’ll do the rest with the lesson at hand.

All that needs to happen is for them to follow me out to the garden and they step into wonderment with ease.

I am learning that the act of being there, in the moment, is a way to fix a philosophical and spiritual approach within my own life. If I can harden and make more permanent the practice of ’being’ in my life– it might just become the greatest gift to my children.