Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Garden (09/07/06)
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TITLE: Our Little Paradise | Previous Challenge Entry
By J. Vibar Nero
09/13/06 -
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Spike and Python are sensible dogs. I taught them good dog manners. But what they did this time around was a breach of faith. Unthinkable! Imagine, the plants I have watered with my own sweat, joy and happiness have been ravaged by the two dogs whom I have equally nurtured with my own sweat, joy and happiness? Ah!, perhaps, the mix of life is such that things like this do happen.
EVERY PERSON desires fulfillment and seeks meaning in different ways. Only most people make their life complex and meaningless along the way.
Mine is simple. Just to feel in my palm the texture of soil and smell it unique fragrance (which is life’s natural aroma), already my spirit rides the clouds. I have been close to the soil since I was young and I was fond of caring for plants as gifts of nature. My late mother taught me to love, care and treasure nature because nature is God’s garden. She told me that nature and human life are entwined, and that whenever our human spirit goes astray it always seeks refuge in nature. She also told me how Adam and Eve breached the tree of life in the Garden of Eden of Bathala (God), and by that very act destroyed themselves.
As I was young then, I just kept everything in my heart. But I began dreaming of my own garden.
WHEN I grew up, I was able to acquire a piece of land in which I built our house. Overjoyed, I told myself, “at last I could already create the garden of my dreams!”. And create my garden I did. It was little but nevertheless a garden.
BUT CREATING an Eden takes a lifetime. You don’t just plant and enjoy it. You have to care for your plants patiently everyday, watch them bring forth new life each morning, and nurture them to growth until they bloom fully.
Our little garden may not be an Eden, but it is to us a paradise. It is a paradise of fruit-bearing trees, flowering plants, palm trees, orchids, and other kinds. All this I planted with my own hands. I took good care of them everyday. I talked to them. I sang to them. I even told them stories. I didn’t allow the weeds to grow in their midst. I vanished the thorns and thistles. I killed the grubs. Just like what I learned to do in the garden of my life.
Our little garden plants, though many, are individually unique. But in their uniqueness lies the total beauty of our little paradise. They grow together in harmony and unity, adored by bees and butterflies that make them even more beautiful individually.
Their harmony creates a symphony of fresh air and a fragrance of peace and serenity that caress my spirit—and I am swinged in the hammock of eternity. In times when weeds, thorns, thistles and grubs attack my life, I seek sanctuary in our little paradise, and there I commune with my late father and mother and with Bathala, and I find rest, serenity, peace, security, and renewed strength.
Our little paradise is holy. It is the shrine of the rituals of our life, mine and my wife’s, together. It is there where we set dates with Bathala, just to talk about our life and about everything else under the heavens.
It is our little paradise where we mostly celebrate our life together with our friends. It is there where we share food, stories, experiences and life.
Indeed, our little paradise is a garden of life. In every growing of a bud and in each blooming of a flower, I and my wife continue to grow and the two of us become one. Life to us becomes more and more beautiful because of the weeds, thorns, thistles and grubs that enliven the bees and butterflies in our life. And the celebration of life knows no bounds.
LIFE is a grand garden. And as long as this garden of life is cared for by us, the mystery of life goes on. And surely the hope of all creation continues; the greatness of the Creator shines through; and our being co-creators remain. And our immortality is ascertained.
Mother was right. The garden of life is immortal. Provided, we take real good care of it and nurture it with the eternal wellspring of love.
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