The softest of things, the hardest of things

Water. I have been thinking about it.

Top of mind decided soaker hose better than rain-birds, sprinklers, open channels or drip lines for organic gardens (especially these pie shaped raised beds). It can direct the water to plant lines more accurately, slowly seeps deeper, and can easily be adjusted for different planting patterns.

I'm not totally sure but am going with this intuition til I know differently.

We put the garden into two main patterns, the larger one an octagon and the smaller two circles intersecting. A neighbor looked at the circles and said, “Oh, venn diagram.” I was thinking more vesica pisces, the ancient symbol that fascinated Pythagoreans and later became the most known mystical symbol for the feminine. A beautiful version covers the Chalice Well in Glastonbury, England.

One of things I love about this pattern thing is everyone can see what they want to see. The generic phrase that doesn't invalidate anyone is “Well, we are doing more of an English mixed decorative garden, even though vegetables.”

A plumber working on the house said (after looking at my plan and a rendition of how it might look from the air.) “Oh, it's kinda a crop circle!” Our landlord seemed quizzed when he first saw it and I could feel him thinking “Wonder why they didn't just do straight rows? Would have been SO much easier.” He had a 1” PCV line ready to go with 3/4” outlets every couple of feet to facilitate row watering straight down the plow lines.

The octagon isn't for me an octagon, nor a pizza pie (as my partner Lisa's son calls it). Actually a bagua. From the Chinese, it literally means “eight symbols” but is most know in the west as the foundation of Feng Shui, the ancient Chinese art and science of creating healthy, vibrant and aesthetic living environments. I helped an author and renouned Feng Shui consultant from Albuquerque, NM put out a book on Feng Shui, and did the cover, layout and diagrams. I love it.

Lisa and I both feel that even a vegetable garden should be not only productive but seriously beautiful. Not something just to weed and harvest food from every so often, but a place to actually live in and renew, a place to absorb the power of growing things. A good garden, an organic garden, yes—but much more. A personally significant work of art. A nature-cooperative earth sculpture. I have missed this so much living and working in the city. I lived for 24 years on an 800 acre cooperative outside of Nevada City, CA. Raised my family there.

Now I want to be outside all the time. In a barefoot garden.

So, water.

All this is to tell you why I had to have the water flow, even if mostly hidden, match the layout. Yep. An eight sided water main. I got this hit a couple of days ago, and $165 worth of PVC and hose bibs and two more days diggin 'n gluin, and we are just about there! I will have an independent bib at the top (towards the center) of each bagua (pizza slice) section and one in the middle (another line will run over to the vesica pisces section). I also ran a waterproof/conduited electric line to the middle circle. We have plans for that, you will see soon.

The water layout just feels SO good. As it took form, we had to run out to look several times a day, ya, at the soon-to-be underground white PVS pipes. It's like a big crystal hidden in the center of the garden.

Water is the most amazing thing. The first, and foremost element. We are made of water. We can go quite a while without eating, but not long without water. And water in motion is SO soothing. The sound, the smell, the feel of it. Have you ever in your life sat by a creek or river and not immediately relaxed, felt your mind stilled, your heart opened and rested?

In the Tao, the “water-way” mysticism of China codified by Lao Tzu sometime in the 6th century BC, it is said that water, the softest of things, overcomes rock, the hardest of things. Water flows around all obstacles large and small while ever-so-slowly, patiently rubbing away and softening any and all rough edges until soft, rounded and beautiful. Like water. Idea is, we should live our lives more like water flows.

My favorite about water. The Catholic mystic St. Teresa of Avila wrote that God created water to show us how spirit works in this world. She wrote a little book about the deep “prayer of quiet” called “Interior Castles”. If you haven't read it, you must. She likens the stages of meditative prayer to exploring a castle where there are many rooms nested as you move to the center. As your prayer deepens, you begin pass through the rooms experientially, going deeper and deeper into a vibrant, living, conscious silence and peace. And you come closer and closer to spirit.

Around the 4th chapter, (and 4th room), she begins to use water as a metaphor for the direct experience of spirit. She relates the satisfaction we grasp through good works and right living to drawing water from a well, or a pieced together plumbing system (I don't think she could run down to Home Depot and get PVC parts easily like I did early this morning!).

Just like any water system, we know that by doing a bit of good work, living in integrity, being kind to others, serving, going to church on Sunday—we can essentially turn on the tap and get a fairly predictable dose of feeling goodness in our hearts.

But she says that the divine gift of a spontaneous experience of spirit, “consolation” she calls it, which comes from habitual, passionate and deep mediation, is like coming unexpectedly upon a gushing, clear spring in a lush forest glade on a hot day. It surprises and cools and refreshes and renews and overwhelms you. It is beyond description in words. Hence metaphors. Sacred. And it changes you forever.

So, Lisa and I plan to meditate in our garden. And when we do, we will imagine the living water flowing in and around it, in 8-sided crystalline and circular patterns, and flowing in the myriad of vessels in our own bodies--water and spirit, without which all would be dry, brittle and lifeless.

michael, from a barefoot garden