“The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is now.” An old Chinese proverb
I literally planted a garden this week, so in keeping with The Artist’s Way’s obsession with synchronicity, it was the perfect time to read this quote.
Mark my word, if you want to get in touch with your relationship to nature and this phenomenal earth of ours, plant something. I’ve never been much of a green thumb, but over the last few years I’ve gotten bold and courageous about my right —as a child of nature and whatnot—to plant things. Last year I sprouted an English pea from a wee baby, a few months ago I invested in some hearty houseplants, and just this past weekend I decided to create an herb garden.
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Judith (my mom) always had an herb garden when I was growing up. We lived on a woodsy plot of country property in rural Massachusetts, and in fact there were three gardens in total. The herb garden was my favorite, as it seemed to hold the promise of fairies and mystical things beyond my imagination. Herb gardens are a unique juxtaposition of ethereal and practical. On the one hand, they seem so extravagant and poetic… on the other, you can eat them, which makes them pretty useful.
However, I had zero ability to garden when I was younger (or zero interest, is probably more like it) and so mostly just followed Judith around while she did all the work and occasionally let me pick snow peas or tomatoes or parsley.
So, back to my own modern day herb garden:
This weekend I planted lemon balm, English thyme, golden lemon thyme, fernleaf dill, gray garden sage (my favorite of course), curly parsley, Italian oregano, and peppermint. So far, they have nearly doubled in size. Yesterday I made fresh lemon balm tea, which reminded me of a trip to Peru that I made with Judith a few years ago. And later I made a vinaigrette salad dressing out of fresh thyme.
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And if you really want to talk about synchronicity, I started reading Mark Coleman’s book Awake in the Wild, which is all about meditation in nature. I planted my herb garden (and just to be totally honest, as you can see by the picture, it’s a miniaturized bonsai-sort of garden compared to Judith’s ambitious affair) right next to where I like to meditate on my deck.
Oh, so getting back to the quote at top. There are a lot of things I could apply this to in my life. One of my big self-suffering topics is regret: I should have gotten a degree in literature instead of art; I should have had kids twenty years ago; I should never have dated that “one” loser; et al.
But, since it’s too late to go back and plant trees in the past, I guess the only real option is to start planting them now. I started with my herb garden.
