The Gardener
Santa Clara, CA 95051
theroot_
I was about to write. I will. But first, something from the left is moving. It scurries over in a wisp of breeze. Imagination supplies a large, friendly tarantula. A twig. Dried out and dropped from the hackberry tree, with curly brown leaves. As it stops, the aura of mystery remains.
Things will change some more. With a quiet moment comes the recognition, after I had written earlier: From wavelets to darkest depths, an ocean is completely water, which can become steam or ice. Steam ships ply the arctic waters, bringing tourists to view calving ice bergs, climate change close-up.
Let us pause here. If things don't seem right, we can always tailor the problem to fit the solution.
I face a pristine concrete canvas, having just swept the patio clean. Framing itself marvelously, with spots of amber afternoon light skimming over, the twig becomes a work of art. And then it occurs.
Canvas might be stretching it a bit. Hoping for a hint of something more artful, I open my dictionary. And what a surprise! I find this writer's delight, the etymology:
[ME & ONF canvas, ult. f. L cannabis hemp] So hemp fiber woven is rope; hemp leaves smoked provoke visions; a painter's visions go on canvas. It's serendipity. Synchronicity! Canvas is both surreal and just what it is.
Pale amber light filters through levels of smoke from the forest fires. At this eye stinging moment, I recall past August afternoons when the quality of light was unstained.
How about a problem entire, from which no one is exempt. Wouldn't that eliminate the choice? Iceberg tourists are there right now, at the tipping point.
The back story bubbles along, mud pits gassing out the volcanic guts of our planet. Is earth relieved, refreshed, renewed? The biosphere is alive. Somewhere, or how, a translation of hydrogen sulfide made it through inert rock, passing a biological byproduct. This rotten description might suffice for some. Farts are chemically described. Nothing further.
But obviously not so. What is life? How about the consciousness that gives rise to this question? We know it has something to do with mental experience, a function of the human brain. Much has been discovered about the chemistry and physics of this organ. Yet as so understood, the brain does not account for consciousness, which has no specific location.
The history of thought comes to a hiatus, a point beyond which going further would seem like sticking a toe in volcanic mud, going beyond rational thought.
Life is a higher order of existence. Water and sunlight change rock, which becomes soil, which fosters vegetative life that eventually becomes minds. All of this happens prior to, and does not depend on, rational thought.
Twinkie is subdued. She had gone to her lurking place, behind the geranium next to the feeder dish. From there, it's just one mighty leap to snag a bird. And in fact robin has shown up, chirping on the fence where the walnut bits are, with Twink curled contentedly by her plant. I warn robin, as usual, and she barely twitches an ear.
Now inexplicably she comes to the pillow on my lap. She goes to sleep beneath my clipboard as I write, as I said I would.
Not much to say. The usual topics. You'd think it would be top priority, climate change, along with the pandemic, overpopulation pushing hunger and starvation. Twink happily asleep, a curled leaf, beautiful and surreal. It's the official motto of the City of Santa Clara: the center of what's possible. I recall the jeweled net of Indra, every gem reflecting the others.
The leaf has skidded out of sight. Too bad people are busy hacking the planet. Sometimes just staying alive is enough. If only they might realize that everything is the center of everything, in a moment large enough for the universe.
What can I say? Maybe I'll get around to writing something later.
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The Gardener
Santa Clara, CA 95051
theroot_