Garden at the "far away"....

Garden at the "up close"....

Some friends of mine have beautiful, beautiful gardens at their home.  They are quite talented in that way I will tell you.  All the flowers, and plants… work so nicely together.  The colors of the life are quite majestic.

I have a few other loved ones in my life who also have this talent.  This is something I’m not very good at…. and know very little about…. this business of The Green Thumb.

I wonder why they call it a Green Thumb, really.  I mean, my friends who raise amazing gardens have dirty brown thumbs, and fingers, after they have worked their hands through the soil.  They are not green at all.

According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, it probably comes from one of two sources:
1. It could go all the way way way back to the reign (not rain) of King Edward I of England.  The Royal Dude loved fresh green peas.  So much in fact…. that he had several servants working to keep him supplied in pea-dom.  They got a prize for having the greenest thumb… which meant they had shelled the most peas. (Or washed their hands the least….. you choose.)
2.  OR it comes from the fact that repeatedly handling clay pots encrusted with algae will stain a gardener’s thumb green.

I’m running with the Pea Story… although I have also heard it results from a master gardener always pinching out buds…. they call it dead-heading or something.  At any rate… they say it will turn one’s thumb green.    Green like peas.

Gardens are amazing though.  And the plant there in.

To me… it is representational of life… in so many different ways.  All of the cycles.  All of the parts working together… or existing completely apart. Needs. Beauty. Dangers. Life. Death.  And back to life again.

And on the outside… from a distance….. it looks completely different than it does up close.  Just as it is a unique actuality above the soil… and an entirely different entity in the root system at its base.

Such a wonder.  Such a mystery.  Such a glorious thing.

Thank you, good gardeners…. for bringing such beauty to this life.  With nature’s help… of course.

“To live in this world, you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go” – Mary Oliver