Sacred Rhythm

I woke this morning with a nature deficit disorder. After four days deprived, I was restless for my gardens.

Thursday through Saturday, at Pella’s downtown Molengracht, I sat in a white vendor tent under a slice of sky with bricks beside and below. Our tent perched among others along the sides of an artificial canal with bright blue cement beside and below its water.

A sign warned not wade in the water. It was chemically treated.

For three days, I greeted passing tourists with a winsome smile, hoping to increase the percentage of them who would browse—and then purchase—handmade ceramics and jewelry.  I believed in our nonprofit project to support Nicaraguan artisans, but by Saturday night, my smile was weary and hollow.

Sunday, I slept.

Once awake, this morning, I start the first chapter of Ruth Haley Barton’s Invitation to Solitude and Silence—and I feel deeply her invitation.

Next, a giant azure bowl of sky and the green garden call me. Over the weekend the perennial geraniums have blossomed in lavender, fuschsia, and pink. On the poppies red flowers are opening.

The soil is too soggy for footfalls, so I dig as many bald dandelions and tall grasses as I can reach from the curb. Then, a cool breeze on my face and arms, I hoe the infant weeds I can reach from the lawn side of the beds.

This Monday morning, I am also hungry for words. So Moby Dick keeps me company. The Pequot crew captures a right whale, then competes with a German ship Jungfrau for a more valuable sperm whale. The Pequot triumphs; then the whale sinks before the crew can harvest its oil.

Adroitly weaving narration and fact, its narrator Ishmael also teaches me about a whale’s eyes astride its giant head, about its tiny ears and brain, and its nonexistent nose.

Lawnside weeding complete, I notice the ragged garden borders. Marlo coaxes the gas-powered weed eater to life for me. I stop Ishmael, and with a roaring motor and whirling string, I crisp the garden edges.

Then I whir down the weeds around the compost pile.

By noon my nature deficit disorder has stilled.  And my word-hunger has been fed.

After lunch I head for town to craft words of my own.

With scone, coffee, and computer on the glass table in front of me, I reflect.

This morning, my eyes and ears were filled by a double dose of beauty.

But with weed eater and  Moby Dick in my ears, my garden was not silent. And with Ishmael for company, I was not alone.

Breathing deeply, I hold guilt at bay.

For everything a season, I think.

However, when Ishmael concludes his epilogue three days from now, in silence and solitude, perhaps I shall go to the garden alone.