With your garden, has a choice been made? Your approach, is it: physical, joyful, literary, moral, and ethical? Had you already put all of this to words? From tricycle days, I knew without words, primal abiding is outside. . Landscape ethics, what are yours? Can you list 3, now, in the order of importance to you? Are you living your landscape ethics in the fullness of your heart? Which layers elude you? What can you change to get there? For you. . No one gets their beautiful garden without redemption. In the beginning, you go into your garden to change it. Visions of a paradise. With good fortune, a few years pass, many unforeseen changes made, and, finally beauty, paradise formed. Along the way, you realize, the garden changed you. . 'Your paradise is a quality of life; but, deeper than that, it's your life.' P. O'Tuama Pic, above, here. . Tell me again, above, how important foundation plantings are. What is the safety clinging to them? Will foundation plantings get you paradise? . "Paradise", comes into Latin & Greek & English, through an early Iranian language, Avestan, which is the language of the scriptures, of Zoroastrian, and, it means, "an enclosed garden." P. O'Tuama. . Pic, above, here. . " This poem isn't sentimental. This poem is saying, here is what it's like to hold paradise, when you know you live in a reality that people would want to steal your paradise, steal your life." P. O'Tuama . 'Steal your life', for too many, is literal, and for too many, metaphor. . "...and sometimes a poet, if they want to make a serious point about politics, will enter into that serious point thru a side door, and they might describe something of landscape or something of memory or something of joy, but there's a line in it that strikes home, because that line is telling a deep political truth around which everything else gathers." P. O'Tuama. . Pic, above, here. . At the front end, planning/planting your landscape is thrilling. You are in charge. You have the control. . "To know what is coming is to perceive control; and the mind is all about control, particularly in the cerebral, capitalist, goal-oriented global north. We want to control, or, in neuroscientific terms, we want to exercise cognitive control, our mysterious ability to behave in accord with the goals we set. ....for, ultimately, humans want to control the future, or to believe that they can." Anna Badkhen Pic, above, here. . Walls of trees, walls of hedges, stone hallway to the door, above, Tara Turf lawn, art against the wall (properly plinthed), completing the room. Simplicity. Yet not. Pollinator habitat, fruiting orchard, a room with layers of ethics and meaning. Something else about these types of landscapes, above. They're the most likely to survive for centuries. . Tara Test Questions: What are the layers of ethics? What are the layers of meaning? How is this orchard generating maximum production? At its most basic level, Landscape Ethics spill upward throughout our lives. We're gifted the joyful beginning, more, grace. . Pic, above, here. . Your life, above/below, is the focal point of your Landscape Ethics. From the fungi in the soil, lizard on the wall, blossoms, bees, birds, your home and how it's situated in your garden, how you see your garden while sitting inside your home. Pic, above, here. . Did a double take at this garden, above. Created same Landscape for a client. She'll be sending me a note after seeing the pic. Proud to have created a landscape to survive centuries. Yet, no worries if it's paved over in 20 years for a road. I've done my duty. . "A lot of problems happen because of your internal state. When you're calm, happy, and fulfilled you don't pick fights, create drama, or keep score." S. Parrish. Pic, above, here. . Since those tricycle days, pure joy taking hold of Landscape Ethics. Didn't know at the outset the Landscape was putting Ethics into me. Nor how many years the process. The ride has given a primal challenge, primal effort, primal abiding, and a primal redemption. . A lot, yes. Yet not the biggest Landscape Ethics gift discovered. Do you know? Pic, above, here. . From the start, while I was fiddling with control, my garden had already set its mission. . Do you know? Took a few decades for me. . Love. In the garden, it is this simple. Whether you think so or not. . Abiding love. The type of love given to all. Agape love. . This precious child, above, knows. . "...an older writer friend tells me that the role of a writer in America today is to help the readers be less affraid." A. Badkhen. In the garden I can better articulate my sorrow or fear, and it's diminished. . "The sages interpret the fable thusly: to truly pray we must first achieve a state of exultation, which means that joy, not sorrow, brings man closer to God. Poets help us make our prayers heard." A. Badkhen. . In the garden, is your poetry. Your prayers. Joy. Love. . Garden & Be Well, XO T