Before we go to the garden, a verse from a poem that could scarcely be less floral or Monty Don:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
We’ll get to the garden; it’s why we’re here. But it is reassuring to know these words from WB Yeats were not written yesterday, after a quick look at the news. They were composed in 1919, amid the disillusionment of Europe, post-World War One. Despair at the world’s contortions has a long history; and yet somehow we remain; and somehow we still smile.
Today, things fall apart and the centre cannot hold because there is no centre, nothing held in common. The technology that was meant to unite us, that was meant create a hearth around which the world could gather and talk, has delivered the opposite. The brave new world is a pot-pourri of small worlds, ruled by lobby groups and inflamed opinions; grabby moguls, grabby nations and niche obsessions, carefully counting their followers. Everyone wants more, everyone is angry, everyone unhappy, everyone gasping for attention and everyone lashing out. Resources to satisfy are finite. The only surplus is in the opinion and judgement department, stimulated by brain-rotting social media.
And so, as Yeats writes, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed and the ceremony of innocence is drowned. Democracy is gasping, it cannot hold this together. Democracy requires a centre around which to gather, something agreed and shared. When nothing is shared, nothing agreed and everything is demanded; when everyone is angry and hysteria is boss, the nation cannot be governed. Enter the strong man, ever more frequent these days, who will divide and rule; and then just rule. Disintegration and chaos begs for the autocrat.
And societal disintegration is mirrored in personal disintegration, where label-loving narratives of the hard-done-by variety, fuel entitlement, misinformation, victimhood and offence; where gratitude is replaced with complaint; serenity with anger and body knowledge with heady opinion. How can the centre possibly hold?
Which is why the garden gospel is so beguiling; and we’ll take Yeats with us as we step outside and contemplate our latter-day piece of Eden.
The first sign of the garden gospel is the bodily work required. Gardens require labour. There’s clearing and composting, weeding, planting watering. Here, I am in my body and not in my head. As I dig and delve, or wrestle with the ivy’s deep root systems, I have no opinions. This is a relief, as opinions are one of the head’s darkest creations. I am in my body; I am earthed, literally. The breeze has more power than my judgements and more good sense. In my body, I am one with all that is around me. I sense commonality; I sense a bigger story than myself. Only my opinions separate.
Second, I understand death, decay and unfairness. Plants and vegetables struggle, wilt and die. The garden is not fair, creation is not fair. Why are people surprised at this? Some plants live their full lives, some hardly get going. Hard work is not always rewarded; beauty does not always win and weeds often seem better equipped for longevity. It’s just how it is. The garden is an earth bowl of uncertainty and so we allow this. Attachments to outcomes are unhelpful; and may bring frustration. The surly gardener, bitter at the birds eating his cherries, understands nothing. Here in the garden is risk as well as beauty, where we do what we can and then rest with things as they are.
Third, plants rise; here there is strange and unpredictable resurrection. We may have given up on the yellow rose last year. It didn’t happen at all. But they take time to settle and this year they dazzle. And the lilies, decimated by the frost and crushed by a jumping fox– they’re back as if these things never happened. While deep underground, the hard seed dies to itself and rises in glory. Resilience is the understanding that nothing is the end of the story; here is the deep magic of the garden.
Fourth, gardens surprise. Plans are allowed, everyone starts with a plan. But the plan isn’t the truth and we’ll be ready for surprises in the garden. Plants we never planted appear; it happens all the time and sometimes they’re the finest flora on show. We do have to let go of control in the garden simply because we are not in control. If we let go of control of what should and shouldn’t be, we see more of the beauty. Uncertainty is the certainty and that’s OK.
Fifth, the garden returns us to our centre. We do not need to become anything here or strive to be anything. The garden doesn’t judge. Here we grasp at nothing and resist nothing. Like the plants, we may live or die, life is fragile here, but all is well for now. I rest with things as they are and trust, often so elusive, arrives. With mind stilled I have found my centre and here I can hold all things.
And finally, I discover connection. The sunflowers, in their mad glory, invite people to stop and talk; perhaps even join in. I leave sunflower saplings for passers-by to take. ‘I’m taking two for my grandchildren,’ says a builder. They go in a day. Beauty is attractive; it creates connections that did not previously exist. So what started out as a labour for one becomes, over the year, a community of many, drawn for a moment into the space and into the story. Helping beauty is never a waste of time as things fall apart…because things can mend.
I leave the vegetable patch and step back inside. I return to the disintegrating world, it’s where I live. Though my disintegrating self feels better for time spent away. It is paradise regained in a manner, innocence un-drowned, convictions cleaned and clearer, the Garden of Eden recovered.
For a moment, the falcon can hear the falconer.
