Parting the veil of tears

The kiss of the sun for pardon,
The song of the birds for mirth,
One is nearer God’s heart in a garden 

Than anywhere else on earth.

 

Dorothy Frances Gurney

 

If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.

Attributed to The Buddha

 

We are living in very strange and disturbing times.   Despite the relative calm many of us feel who are retired, and not on the front lines during the Covid pandemic, and who continue to self-quarantine and sequester, the reality is that the world is approaching tipping changes that once crossed will take every bit of human ingenuity and togetherness to fight and overcome.  I refer to the frightening pace of global warming; a worldwide pandemic that has been devastating to people’s mental and physical health, livelihoods and way of life;  the rapid extinction of species; and the rise of autocratic leaders sound the world, including in the United States.  I never dreamed things would or could get so bad so quickly.  It makes me shudder and fear for the future of the younger generation today, but in them  I find the only really fresh signs of hope that they will overcome hatred and prejudice and lead the way to a transformed world after the election of 2020 and this horrible pandemic have passed.

For now though this veil of tears in front of us that shows only incipient signs of parting to the sunlight beyond, and will continue to cloud our sunny days and the optimism that struggles to lift this gray cloud fom over humanity.

Sometimes I feel like a hermit, alone in my house month after month, but I feel safer in my isolation than I would trying to reclaim any real measure of my former life.   I realize now that I was totally consumed responsibilities and busyness and had hardly any time at all to foster my own inner well being and spirituality.

Now I have opportunity in abundance, but old ways and worrisome and habits die hard.   For years as I took care of my mother who had dementia, I sacrificed my time gladly to keep her in the home she loved and out of a memory facility or nursing home.  I am thankful I succeeded in that with my sanity and health more or less intact.  But I don’t think I could have coped nearly as well without the brief escapes I was able to make to a historic garden near Charleston that draws visitors from all over the world.  It has hundreds of acres, but I hav come to know well the places and times there that allow me to wander alone across hundreds of acres.  When I can do that I literally feel transported to another world.   I have a yearly membership and can go anytime I want.  It’s beautiful and full of flowers in all seasons because of our mild climate.

The gardens are part of the Magnolia Plantation, established in 1676 along the banks of the tidally influenced Ashley River. During the 19th and 20h centuries the actual story of the enslaved African Americans who created  and worked on the plantation was  not told to the visiting public  public, only the sanitized “Gone with the Wind” version, but now their story is told, including the sordid details of 19th and 19th century rice cultivation in coastal South Carolina, which enabled the massive wealth and huge mansions  and merchant houses  in nearby Charleston.

Now Autumn is now settling in, and it will be cool as I walk the garden paths I have  become familiar with for more then 40 years.  It is a sanctuary for me in the truest  sense, especially now in these terrible times of uncertainly and travail we are living through.

 

History of Magnolia Gardens

https://www.magnoliaplantation.com/magnolia_history.html