Ode to Gardening - collaborating with Nature

          Nature has proven to be an abundant and prolific mentor.  Pondering her distinctive grandeur gave me the means to comprehend distinction in general, learning through her to apply this distinction to myself.  So I am challenged to communicate distinction.  I will gravitate to activities which generate thoughts that succeed in helping me do so. 

          For me, creating art has proven to be such an activity.  Art work enables me to bridge a gap between Nature and myself because I am simply following her lead.  Nature participates in  elevating my social consciousness. 

          An artist can treat all of life as if it were food – as fuel for inspiration and thought, as potential subject matter and artistic content. An artist need not be prejudice against the good and bad of any of life. 
          When feeling and reflection intermingle they give rise to compassion, affection, and admiration.  Without these capacities added to my being, I would not be distinct from Nature in her detachment from the morality of the life forms she produces.  Yes, a certain amount of detachment and "objectivity" is required of me, but without the capacity for affection and attachment I would be less than human and would qualify as simply another creature groveling for survival on the earth's surface.

          So it is a challenge for me to overcome Nature's indifference with my specialized capacity to express affection.  And better yet if Nature's special skills and my own can interact. 
          Gardening is one area of expression where this interaction can occur - my gardening skill shares power with the earth's ability to grow plants and this activity tutors my affection toward Nature in a manner which transcends the specific activity of gardening. 
          Gardening teaches me how to collaborate with the inherent power of an entity other than myself.  I am enhancing Nature's unique skills with my perseverance and her power rewards me with a Total environment, one informed by both human and earthly nature. 

          I can grow affection toward Nature as I tend to the garden, so I can develop a concern for her even though I cannot see contaminants in the air.  I can express affection toward Nature as I paint abstract invertebrates and organisms, so I can create with an attitude of caring for her even though I cannot see the hole in the ozone layer. 
          In both instances my affection toward her is rewarded.  The abstract thing of affection is made just as physical and tangible as both Nature and myself.  Such expression while springing from our differences highlights our similarities.  These activities also tutor me about decay and loss.  I miss flowers when they disappear in the fall in the same way I anticipate missing family members when their opportunity to move about has passed.

          My desire to care is matched by her nurturing capacity, and my creative efforts embody our mutual physicality and tendencies toward growth.  For the greater part of life, growth is conditional - I am free to choose my own fertilizer.  I am not free to grow another arm, but I am free to refine the content of my expressions.  The ability to manipulate the content of my  expressions presupposes mastery of a particular medium.  With mastery literally in my hands, the struggle shifts from having difficulties with the materials of my craft to struggles with subject matter and content. 

          The desire to record and express affection has affected my objectivity.  It neutralizes my desire for power over anything other than myself, least of all nature.  The objects I make document my emotional history.  Whether I am conscious of my emotional state or not the making of objects will create a record of my emotions.  Artistic mastery is complicated by this dynamic.
          Not all are capable of manipulating their emotional state into the service of mastery.  Not all are planted in pristine soil to be nurtured by fate and good luck.