Hillsborough, New Hampshire
To establish a garden in is heroic. Over years, root systems grow into woven carpets. I have learned how to pull them up using an edger and a hand cultivator. To take a garden back from neglect is to reject tragedy. A bed can return to grasses with surprising speed. To maintain a garden is gentle work, nothing like yanking up the carpet of grasses and tree roots. But the garden requires it constantly.
There are whole realms of the self left to grass. I can feel them when I meditate, asking for their own good for me to tear them up, to water the exposed dirt, to add compost. If I pull mind-weeds all day it is easier to face them, because areas of the garden are ordered and sane. One compares them and knows what is possible. We must neither try to rule nature nor let it rule us.