Toiling in the fields of creation

I was outside a bit ago, assaulting the verdant growth of weeds that are the result of the almost-daily rains we have been having.

I pull them by hand. I could use the mower, but hand-pulling is more effective to bring them out by the roots and doesn't leave a stubble to dry out into little upright spears (or, for the more durable weeds, leave a basis for new growth). Besides, the mower, while a very useful tool, is after all a noisy smelly man-machine, and when I pull by hand I can hear the birds and the wind in the trees and smell the dirt and my own sweat. And as the ground is saturated from last night's soaking rain, the weeds come out by the roots in great mighty Bunyanesque handfuls. Which I suppose casts my loyal dog in the role of Babe the Blue Ox.

For me, weeding is as much a philosophical exercise as a physical one. There is a very practical result -- a yard (temporarily) free of weeds -- but there is also a re-connection with consideration, and with cause and effect and cycles.

Some people viewing my actions from afar might wonder at the point of them, as I just seem to be pulling weeds here only to lay them down over there. But what I am doing is using the pulled weeds as a layer of mulch in a different part of the garden. I let them grow up high enough to provide some useful mass but not old enough to develop seeds, then I pull them up, carry them 30 feet, and deposit them in a thick layer ahead of the growing pumpkin vines. Thus I have turned a problem into a resource, and each year the mulched area spreads a little further across the garden and grows deeper and richer. (And as I carry the weeds across, I wonder what other things in my life might be repurposed in this way and what resources I am overlooking.)

Many people view weeds as a tireless enemy, and weeding as a tedious chore. I have met people for whom weeding was a childhood punishment, and people who avoid it at all cost. And many people seem to view weeds as servants of the devil. But the only practical definition of a weed is "a plant where a human being doesn't want it"; they are not inherently evil, merely unwelcome. Even as I pull them up, I have to be impressed with the robust vitality of the weeds. They throng into unused areas, often the first to colonize ground laid bare by other forces. It has been said that nature abhors a vacuum, and weeds are vigorous proof of that. Servants of nature, not tools of chaos.

The weeds have grown up thick enough as to create a microclimate beneath themselves, a miniature ecosystem. Though I try to be as gentle as possible, my actions are inherently disruptive; humans change ecosystems, it's what we do. My cleaned yard costs more than just time and sweat -- it also changes the lives of myriad small inhabitants of the area, the spiders and insects, earthworms and lizards for whom the change is as sudden as an earthquake is for us. I press on because it is necessary, but as I see all the scurrying ahead of and as a result of my scything hands, I am made mindful that I am but one user of this patch of land, among many.

I am pleased to see that the soil which comes up on the roots of the weeds is rich and healthy. I pride myself in always leaving land more fertile than when I found it -- I "made" this rich earth with my efforts and husbandry. But I am again reminded that to say that I made this earth rich is the height of arrogance; while my tending certainly made a difference, I was merely supporting and exploiting systems of richness already in place. It was the countless small creatures, the microorganisms whose complex interactions we are only beginning to grasp, who performed the labor and miracle of making this soil fertile. At best, I was an overseer.

As I reach down from on high to change their lives with a grunt, I am struck by another richness, this time a rich sense of irony. My all-but-godlike effect on tiny lives resonates for me in a very personal way.

I was not raised in any particular faith, and in fact could not tell you what faiths my parents were raised in. Proselytizers seem to sense this "void" in me, and it was at one time not uncommon for me to be approached by them several times a day, by people coming to the door or trying to get my attention as I walked across a campus. I tried a variety of techniques to forestall their attentions, ranging from polite to snide depending upon my mood and how pushy they were.

Then I came upon a technique which worked well, every time. When they asked my faith, I would say, "Oh, I'm a gardener" and keep walking. As this was not on the list of possible responses they might be expecting, they were struck into confusion long enough for me to make my escape.

I used this ploy for years, with great success. Then one day I was telling someone about my technique, pleased at my own cleverness, and as I spoke it struck me like a thunderbolt: I am a Gardener. It is my religion. Some deeper, wiser part of myself made me speak the truth disguised as a smartass remark.

The correctness of my realization washed over me. Absent were all of the problems I had with other religions. No one is excluded from gardening; a seed does not care the color or age or sex of the hand that presses it into the soil. It does not matter if the person who waters the seed is rich or poor, has large holdings of land or only room for one plant. There is never any question regarding the strength of a gardener's devotion -- it is there for all to see, in how well you have tended your garden. And there can be no question that there is something greater than oneself -- this is a sure knowledge which a gardener carries every day. The cycles of nature are paramount, rather than an afterthought. There is a celebration of growth and harvest, as well as a clear understanding of the need for death and decay, and how decay leads to growth.

I have always been uncomfortable with the idea of a trinity, especially as it seems to downplay the role of the feminine. For a gardener there are far more than three elements -- oh, there are soil and water and air, but there's also seed, and season, and me. And the teeming billions of little partners who are in and of the soil. A gardener is never alone in his worship.

Perhaps the nicest result of my realization that gardening was my religion was that I no longer felt at odds with other religions. I don't see how any person of any faith can take issue with gardening as a religion. After all, if God isn't a gardener, who is?