Tag: Gardens

Contemplation

On the glorious splendor of your majesty,

and on your wondrous works, I will meditate.

(Ps 145:7)

A Deck with a View

The word for which I’m looking is Contemplation. Yesterday evening, on the way to Cutter’s, a local lounge, to listen to a jazz ensemble, I struggled with a word that is more acceptable than meditate and yet more adequately describes what I’ve come to refer to as my Garden Times. Earlier in the day I’d sat on the deck staring at the trees in the woods. I thought that if I were to awaken with no knowledge of G-D, I’d look at the trees and they would point to Him. Apostle Paul said as much.

This “thinking” on the deck is more than mere thought, however. But meditating is a word with connotations of emptying oneself and opening oneself up to some Universe Power. Meditating is occasionally referred to as letting go of one’s “monkey mind” and of “becoming one with the Universe.” Neither is my intent, nor is simply thinking.

Perhaps this deep thought might be called prayer in a Christian Church. Yet prayer is so ambiguous. It can mean so many different things. Reading a Psalm is considered prayer to a Jewish man praying Psalm 145 in the morning. Then there are the “Prayers of the People” in an Episcopal and a Roman Catholic Church service in which the priest reads a list of items and the congregation speaks a liturgical response after each item on the list. Prayer is often just humans speaking to G-D as children recite the Pledge of Allegiance at school.

Neither meditation nor prayer do justice to experiencing G-D’s presence in contemplation. That’s the best word for my Garden Times. “On the glorious splendor of your majesty and on your wondrous works, I will contemplate.” I will contemplate the glorious splendor of G-D’s majesty. I will contemplate G-D’s wondrous works. I will hear G-D’s response and prompting and perhaps catch a glimpse of Him. I shall be as the women who sought to but touch the hem of Yeshua’s garment. I will, like Job, hear G-d say He will ask a question and require my response. I might hear G-D say something to which I might, like Abraham, respond boldly with “don’t be angry, but might Your servant ask just one thing more?” I want to cry aloud, as King David:

We have thought on your steadfast love, O G-d,

in the midst of your temple.

As your name, O G-d,

so your praise reaches to the ends of the earth.

Your right hand is filled with righteousness.

Let Mount Zion be glad!

Let the daughters of Judah rejoice

because of your judgments!

(Psalm 48:9, 10, 11)

Numbers-6-24-26 - 1
Numbers-6-24-26 – 1

Lazy Hazy Days of Summer. . .

. . . NOT! Although our spring lasted well into June, with good rain and cool temperatures, that’s over now, and hot and humid by two o’clock in the afternoon is the order of things. While there’s been some storm clouds building late in the day, we’ve had only sprinkles this past week. But the mornings–those are wonderful. Cool, with minimal bugs, birds singing, frogs croaking. Pleasant!

Echinacea
Echinacia or Cone Flower, while there is no scientific evidence to show that echinacea will heal, Native Americans and even Elk have used it for its immunological properties. And we grow it for the same reasons!

In the garden all weekend, digging out more clay, replacing it with top soil, planting. We also began work on a second pond that is a few feet higher, up slope, from the one we dug last year. Water will pump out of the old pond into a stock tank that will filter the water, dumping it into the new pond. From there water will fall two-foot into the old pond. The building process begins with digging out very hard clay down nearly three feet on one end, and a bit under two feet on the other. A wall added to that side will raise it above the older pond. We have rubber liner that will hug the clay, sealing the pond. Once the new pond is filled with water, we’ll let it sit a day or so and move all the fish and plants into it from the old pond. A thorough cleaning of the old pond is next. Refilled with water, letting it sit to de-clorinate, then we can move some of the plants and fish back.

Another Pond
Beginning to build another pond.

We’re adding a new, larger pump to fill the stock tank we’ll use as a filter, providing water flow of about 3200 gallons an hour. The old pumps will be re-purposed into aerators for each pond that will bubble air into the water to help with algae control.

Most of the work is just plain hard labor of digging out the clay. The interesting part comes when cutting in the new pond, getting the water to flow the way we want, and arranging the plants.

But one step at a time. Like in all things, it all begins with the sweat and aching muscles of hard work.

Lord Bless, Keep, Shine upon you all.

The Lord will keep you from all evil;
He will keep your life.
The Lord will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time forth and forevermore
Psalm 121:7-8