The morning is magnificent.  A strong sun bathes everything with life-giving light.  Delicate vine plants, promising to blossom throughout the summer months ascend to the trellis, with perceptible growth by the day.

In company with my daughter I visited Home Depot yesterday.  Our mission was to purchase some plants, and to buy the foundation stones necessary to mounting our two rain barrels.  How do we live in harmony with Nature, caretakers, cultivators, connoisseurs, of beauty and of the nourishment provided?  Seems to me it is a matter of harmony, and nothing less.  Are we too not of Nature?  Do we not with every living thing, have a temporary lease upon our occupancy here, and do we not require nurture, diligent care-taking throughout the course of our journey?  I know that we do.  And I know that Nature requires the same from us.

To be clear, this is something that I hold as fact, the object of knowledge, as opposed to a kind of faith, something that I happen to believe.  Facts and beliefs are distinct, related yes, but different nevertheless.  What I believe is a variety of opinion, changeable, something to be held lightly, which I happily am prepared that you disagree with.  You like vanilla, but I like chocolate, — our difference of opinion just adds interest to our friendship.  You happen to believe that vanilla is better.  What I mean to say is not like that.  Human beings and Nature are objects worthy of cultivation, of solicitude without qualification: a fact.  On that we must all agree; I need you to agree.

Yet, the matter is controversial, not agreed upon at all.  It is not unusual to regard others, as prospective customers, targets of a media campaign of persuasion.  It is not unusual to consider Nature as merely there for exploitation, for value extraction, to the limits of our technology.   Of course you’ve read such in this blog before.  This settled position I have brought up on a number of occasions in the past.

At Home Depot we purchased a diminutive tree for planting, a Contorted Filbert.  It looks as it sounds, the branches twist and turn in a sculptural fashion.  Will it produce filbert nuts?  Perhaps!  I desired the tree for it’s sensual visual appeal.  Additionally purchased were two Feather Falls Carex plants which will find a home in round planters on either side of our white Buddha statue.  They are green-white cascading grass-like plants.  My concept is to complement the pose of the meditating image that life itself is a give-take reciprocal exchange.  Admittedly this is a core principle of Buddhism, but I am sure that Jesus would agree.

Finally a glance back at the Leonard Cohen song ‘Hallelujah,’ the lyrics brutally to the point, and the melody, seductively simple.  In fact Cohen tells the listener how the melody is constructed within the lyric of the first verse.

It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift

The lyric and melody convey that life itself is a surging passion, the up-welling of sensation.  We do not often “manage” passion well, are subject to suffering damage when we violate the limits of relationship when passion runs amok.  It is dangerous to “want what one wants,” and to have the means to obtain the object of one’s desire without restraint.  Cohen references the stories of David and of Sampson to highlight such sorrow of our own making.

I conclude with a magisterial instrumental performance of “Hallelujah” by Jake Shimabukuro.  The chords move as Shimabukuro plays the tune with his ukulele.

The photos are of the emerging hosta shoots, precursors to the ample sun-catching leaves which will soon follow.

Are these plants not sensual?