On Valentine's Day

Love

 As I write this post today, I find myself in love once again. Love has always been a powerful emotion to me, as it is I suspect with everyone susceptible to it. As I sit here contemplating its hold on me, I realize that we too-often discount its real meaning in life. On days like this, folks outside a relationship dismiss it and folks who have lost one ridicule it - like it is love's fault somehow. Perhaps we define it too narrowly or misunderstand what it really gives us.

When we define love as something between two individuals/ a pet/ even a possession, we minimize the scope of what love entails. As I wander my new landscape or simply sit outside and watch the life that now lives around me, I have a better understanding of love, I believe. I realize that real love exceeds the simple two-person/ thing relationship and that it encompasses a much broader outlook on life as a whole. It is love that draws us to the earth and the creatures/plants/natural beauty that share this life with us. Those of us that plant a living landscape have come to this realization and those around me largely haven't yet. 

To want to give back more to this world than we take means that we have been touched by love in its real form. The concept of reciprocity so well stated by Robin Wall Kimmerer in her book Braiding Sweetgrass, provides us with a road map to our landscapes. We give back at least as much as we take from the earth. There is no way to live without taking, but we can create the conditions to reciprocate what we take by our need to live. Our living landscapes  create the conditions for life to grow. My neighbors' landscapes do not. When we discover a love for life, we plant the seeds to make this happen.

Love is a most-powerful emotion. On this Valentine's Day, I wish you all love in its real sense. Share your love with the rest of the earth. That is the gift that should define this special day.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wildflower Meadows - The Importance of Grasses

Image
A Natural Wildflower "Meadow" - Apalachicola National Forest I grew up in the prairie Midwest and was fortunate to have been caught up in the prairie restoration movement that blazed brightly in the last few decades of this past century. Very little of our original prairie ecosystems remain as the rich prairie soils were quickly converted to agricultural uses as European settlers swarmed their way over the continent.  These ecosystems are extremely diverse, regardless of where they occur. From the tall-grass prairies of the Midwest to the rockland prairies of the Mid-South and the true dry prairie systems here in Florida where I now reside, there are several universal characteristics - they are some of the most species diverse systems in the world and they are dominated by grasses. Grasses, in all their many shapes and forms, are what form the foundation of any "meadow." That must also be true for all the "wildflower meadows" I see extolled on s
Read more

Water & Watering

Image
 As I write this, Jane and I have had only one measurable rain event in the past 4 months - 3/4's of an inch about a week ago.  It is no exaggeration to say that our landscape is parched.  Some that I know in the native plant movement decry the use of potable water to assuage their landscape plants; saying things like "if my plants can't make it on their own, they are not appropriate to my landscape."  The idea being that a "native plant" should be able to surive on its own without additional inputs such as water.  While I understand this line of thinking, I would argue otherwise.  It comes down to the question of why we're planting natives in our landscape at all. If our ultimate goal is to create a landscape that survives completely on its own without any assistance, watering during times of extreme and unusual drought makes sense.  It's just not why I plant natives.  My goal here is to create as much plant diversity as possible on my 1/4-acre subu
Read more

The Ethics of Collecting Seed

Image
I've been writing lately about seeds and using them to create what is often called a pollinator meadow. A great many of the plants in my new landscape were grown from seed. Frankly, I have always loved sowing seeds and watching them sprout. I started in early childhood and I've been doing it since. It's rewarding and the anticipation of waiting for seeds to sprout is difficult to match unless you play the lottery. I rarely purchase seeds. I collect them. When I can, I purchase a few plants of a species I wish to add to my landscape and I then collect their seed after they bloom. If a plant doesn't prosper sufficiently to set seed for me, it is not a plant I wish to continue to grow. Over the years, I've tried a great many plants that I've failed to adequately provide for. Today in my landscape, I'm trying a few that I've never tried before. The exceptions come from plants that are not available in the trade. To grow these from seed, I need to collect
Read more