Circle of Life
To everything there is a season. . . and all that. Today it’s finally and fully springtime here in Maine: 70 degrees, sun shining, buds bursting into that once-a-year green-yellow that promises life has overcome all odds and is being reborn before our very eyes. I spend the morning crouched on a beanbag yoga cushion, basking in the sunlight and playing God. I fold my hand around the tender shoot of the tiny maple whirlers sprouting in my flower box and poking through cracks in the brick patio of our condo. Each one is seeking its one chance at life, but alas, that is not to be. I gently pull until its roots give way and toss it into a paper sack. The Lord giveth, and Linda taketh away.
A few decades ago I read a full-page ad in the New York times, signed by a long list of Buddhist organizations and such famous figures as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. In bold-faced capital letters it screamed out AMERICA WILL INSTIGATE THE NEXT NUCLEAR WAR and went on to explain why: our indiscriminate use of pesticides shows the depth of our culture’s complacent disregard for insects, and by extension, all sentient beings. I find myself wondering whether baby maple saplings count as sentient beings. There’s growing talk today about panpsychism, the belief that all creation is endowed with rudimentary consciousness and sacred energy. In an article he calls The Private Lives of Rocks, Jon David suggests that this awareness has been a bedrock of myriad spiritual traditions, from Native American cosmology to Buddhism to the writings of mystical Christian theologian Teilhard de Chardin, to contemporary healers.[1] If that be so, how much more could be said for the little sprouts hanging limp in my hand?
life and grab for the next stalk. “Weeding is something gardeners have done for millennia,” I try to convince myself. “They’re all going to die anyway. There’s not enough space to turn this little corner of the earth into a maple grove. Anyway, this is my property and I want to use the flower box for planting impatiens. I briefly wonder how, in their essence, these excuses are so different from the ones Putin must tell himself.
But that’s not a path I choose to travel down on this glorious spring morning. I must simply admit that I’m only human, playing my part in the cycle of Ecclesiastes. Today is my time to pluck and these maple saplings’ time to be plucked up. As self-serving as that sounds, it’s the very best that I can do. I sprinkle a little bone fertilizer on the newly prepared bed and set aside my moral machinations, basking in the sunlight and taking my place in the circle of life.
[1] John David, The Private Lives of Rocks https://philosophynow.org/issues/117/The_Private_Lives_Of_Rocks#:~:text=Unlike%20bats%2C%20rocks%20don%27t,perceptions%20%E2%80%93%20just%20that%20it%27s%20conscious.