The Garden at the End of Spring

Gardens must be important. Humans invented gardens a long time ago, and we have developed a multitude of different ways to make them. A singular purpose unites all gardens, though, no matter what form they take, and that is the reshaping of nature to better suit our desires. 

Nature is where we began. As an element within nature, humans were one species among many, one link in the food chain, sometimes the eaters and sometime the eaten. Like every creature, we had certain abilities, certain capacities. We had reasoning brains and dexterous hands, and these we used to elevate ourselves, to improve our condition and differentiate ourselves from all the other creatures. Humans did everything we could to separate ourselves from nature because it threatened us and we wanted to be more comfortable. 

But we cannot stand separate from nature for long. We are still part of it and to be apart from it is to be unwhole. Humans divorced from nature become sick — in body, mind and spirit. 

Faced with this reality, humans invented the garden. We gathered around ourselves little bits of nature, the things we liked, the harmless parts that did not threaten us. We gathered these pleasing pieces together and organized them in ways that better suited our tastes, that better expressed our ideals. Plants were the main components of these assembleges, but water and stones were used as well. 

There are no impermeable walls in nature. It is not possible to isolate individual elements of it for very long because it all belongs together; all of nature is one thing. A garden composed of plants, water and stones will soon attract bugs, birds, little mammals, reptiles and amphibians. Nature disassembled immediately begins to put itself back together again. So it must be. 

Humans have attempted to separate from nature, but it cannot be done. We only make ourselves sick when we try. If we insist on persisting in the effort, the only hope of success is in our eventual extinction, in which case life will go on in some form without us. 

Perhaps this is why gardens are so important. Humans invented gardens as a way of manipulating nature, but nature uses gardens as a way to bring humans back into the fold. 

Worth another read?