Tiny Seeds in a Big Garden

In my North Carolina garden, even while planting tiny seeds, my third eye (the inner eye in Eastern spiritual tradition) was on the big picture: what this seed will become, and how the garden will incorporate it, and the sense of well-being it will bring to my life－not today, but at some point in the future. In the same way, my work for pay was made up of many small tasks－tasks that were part of the much bigger picture of my own work, and the even bigger picture of the work of the staff. And extending even beyond the staff and the church walls in which we labored, the work of that community of faith always has a third eye on the future of the global world: the big picture.

These days my living feels very different. I am spending time with my beloved mother, the one who breathed life into me, who cherished and 
nurtured me. The one who is now approaching end of life. I know readers will beg to differ－and I understand－but my days and my living now are focused on the minutiae. What can I do today－this minute－to keep the bloom on the flower a little longer? There is no bigger picture for her, and therefore not for me. There is no garden to plant for the future. The only garden is the one I am standing in at this moment. It is true, I may reap a harvest in a time to come, as well as pass on what I learn; but the only thing that really matters is right here, right now, within these walls.

On the other hand, my North Carolina home sat 
under a very small patch of sky. My garden was surrounded by trees that stretched upward and blocked the view of what was beyond. Since the southern sky doesn’t vary much in general－blue, puff clouds, dark: that’s pretty much it－my small patch was even more static. And the North Carolina sky stays put most of the time, way up in the stratosphere.

My Washington home, as I have I said to you before, is on the side of a hill. I can see miles and miles of sky. And it is constantly changing as clouds roll across the landscape. The sky is peaceful and dramatic and everything in between, sometimes all in the same day－at least in this season. And it doesn’t know its place: it often keeps company with the tree tops as fog drifts silently among them and fills in the valley and then dissipates before my eyes. Here I get much more of the big picture.

In North Carolina, I drove two miles to work/church/shopping. My picture frame was confined. Here, I drive 30 miles once a week to yoga and may soon commute there on a second day to church, across the prairie under its big sky. Because my town is small, I regularly step out of it, and my picture frame is much more expansive.

Yesterday, the sky is amazing as I drive to yoga enjoying the eye-popping color of deciduous trees against the deep green backdrop of conifers, as I think about the minutiae and the big picture. The clouds are in layers, with some where they should be, way up in the sky; and others floating close to the ground. I am reminded of a favorite poem by Stanley Kunitz: “Live in the layers, not on the litter.” Life is not on the ground, not in the sky; not in the minutiae, not in the big picture. Life is not in the extremes, but in the layers.

I settle onto my yoga mat, and am aware of the layers of sound. The amplified reverberation of an event on the floor below the yoga loft insinuates its way into my conscious- ness. The whistle of a train shrieks down a nearby track. The shrill squawk of the gulls wheels around the building. And through it all, the calming presence of the yoga music weaves through the layers, grounding me in the space of my mat. I can’t always hear it, it is so soft; then there it is again when I remember to listen for it. It is the thread of the music within the din that reminds me the One Who is More is here in the layers with me: here in the minutiae of these days; here in the big picture; here in the garden all the time.