Dear Reader:

Welcome Spring! So good to see you again!

” I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses; And the voice I hear, falling on my ear, The Son of God discloses. Refrain: And He walks with me, and He talks with me, And He tells me I am His own, And the joy we share as we tarry there, None other has ever known.”

That first line in one of my favorite hymns (In the Garden) sums up beautifully why I love my garden so much…because it is where I find God…it is where I find peace, and it is where I find my path.

Nerburn uses the phrase…“Our heart is known by the path we walk” and I have thought about that phrase a lot … how true it is. I have noticed each day, while working in the garden, how my path through it, is starting to fade somewhat, blend into the rest of the  garden…it is not as distinctive as it once was.

*Then I remembered when my “firemen” cut my yard for the first time this  new year (while I was at Pawleys) I forgot to tell them to outline the path which they started doing last year for me. I think it is important to keep our paths clear and visible for others to follow…to find their way through the garden.

The other day I checked to see what other books Nerburn has written and got caught up in a synopsis about another work of his called Simple Truths. I liked what I read and will share a few of my favorite things  in it in just a minute…but first…a wonder moment. 

It rained most of the morning yesterday…but then around 11:00 it stopped and I joyously ran outside to resume puttering around in my garden. Sometime during this period…the sun shone through briefly and a bud on Amanda’s rose bush caught the light…it still had droplets of water clinging to it. That is when I thought of the famous line from ‘In the Garden’… I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses…

I thought I could capture the “dew on the roses” but instead the rose blended into a white light that turned it almost translucent…just beautiful. I was filled with wonder…wonder at the beauty and wonder at the law of nature that created this illusion of a rose within a rose shining brightly. I learned something new.

“Lifetime Learning…Nerburn Style”…

“One of the sources of Nerburn’s way of looking at things is that he is a lifelong learner who keeps expanding his horizons and cherishing even the trivialities as something worth exploring. Or to put it another way, he is a practitioner of wonder: “Education is one of the great joys and solaces of life. It gives us a framework for understanding the world around us and a way to reach across time and space to touch the thoughts and feelings of others. But education is more than schooling. It is a cast of mind, a willingness to see the world with an endless sense of curiosity and wonder.”

Best of all, “the true measure of your education is not what you know, but how you share what you know with others.” 

I love that definition of lifetime learning…simply sharing what we have learned with others and then let those others do the same thing and so on and so on and so on…result…individualized global learning.

Kent Nerburn worked for several years with the Ojibwe of Northern Minnesota helping collect the memories of the tribal elders. This following observation (he shares from his time spent with this Native American tribe) really touched home yesterday with me.

Native Americans always had plenty of time for solitude and silence. They looked at the natural world and saw the benefits of both : “The mountain is not restless in its aloneness. The hawk tracing circles in the sky is not longing for union with the sun. They exist in the perfect peace of an eternal present, and that is the peace that one only finds in solitude.” Nerburn concludes that this is the best antidote to loneliness.

Guess what? I was pushing my wheelbarrow down my driveway to empty it on the side of the street when I saw, not one, but two beautiful hawks sitting on the fence…Luckily I had my IPhone in my jean pocket and pulled it out. Neither the wheelbarrow or myself pushing it disturbed them in the least…in fact one of the hawks seemed to be posing for the picture.

They are definitely a couple because on the second wheelbarrow push I saw them fly to a big nest high atop one of my pine trees. Must be that time of the year again. Love is in the air!  Congratulations to both of you!

So until tomorrow…I hear some people talk about how they don’t like mysteries (for reading purposes and /or watching on television or movies) and that is perfectly fine…everyone likes different genres…but I do have to smile and think that we are all living in one big mystery here on earth and it won’t be solved until we are no longer here. Or as Nerburn states:

“When all the words have been written and all the phrases have been spoken, the great mystery of life will remain.”

*If you have a minute listen to this duet rendition of In the Garden by Meryl Streep and Garrison Keillor from the movie- The Prairie Home Companion. It was so beautiful in its simplicity…then in the eighties and still now.

Meryl Streep & Garrison Keillor ~ In The Garden~ ( A Love Song …

I had to smile when I lifted this little bench and started getting the pine straw and leaves from under it… then cutting back the two little bushes so they wouldn’t be in the way of the bench because on Easter this is the picture photo bench…no one has outgrown it yet…but it won’t be much longer until it happens…and Boo will be very sad. So smile all my precious grandchildren in this “eternal present!“