Saturday 10 May 2008

Gardening

Struck by how little work I had managed to get done this winter, I tackled the garden today. We have Ground Elder. It is easy to remove cosmetically but has great arterial tap roots that lie underground sniggering at your attempts to kill it from above by giving it a haircut. The root traverses our lawn, rising to the east in our neighbour's annuals and making merry in ours. It exits west into our other neighbour's. They employ poisons.

I am wary, since eradicating the weeds on the patio and watching the lawn die back, as the rain washed the organophosphates onto it. It only recovered after a winter of sharp frosts..


Now, Buddha presides over the garden, reminding me that worms ought to be placed carefully on the soil when they wind up on the path, patches of uncultivated area are good for birds and patience is the best of virtues.



And, for all that, this is the thanks he gets.


The Bhumisparsa Mudra hand gesture (Touching the earth as Gautama did, to invoke the earth as witness to the truth of his words) is enhanced by the spring mud on his lap and Blackbirds have connected his shoulders to the sky.

1 comment:

Sue said...

Those of a herbal/plant spirit medicine inclination might say 'Why does he need this plant?' Mrs Grieves might say it is because it will help with your sciatica:
http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/g/goutwe32.html
- and you can try it in a salad, too...
http://joannasfood.blogspot.com/2007/06/ground-elder-salad.html