Our next planning meeting is Tuesday, November 15.

Lib Mitchell, a.k.a. Lyrical LIBbe, is attuned to the spirituality of gardening. Her essays are inspired by her time spent tending the plants and worm beds, but also from her fervent interest in the substance and meaning of our existence on this beautiful earth. Talk to Lib for only a short while, and you will soon appreciate that she’s read a lot in her pursuit of knowledge in this realm. Curiosity begets learning.

Which brings us to the philosopher Alan Watts, who Lib quoted here to begin her November column. (Lib got your newsletter editor enthused for Alan Watts’ writings, too, showing again that our garden enriches its members’ lives in ways beyond just growing fruits and vegetables.)  
 

USF student and garden volunteer, Zack Neztel, might be Lib’s latest fan of Alan Watts
after she gifted him her well-worn copy of Watts’ autobiography, “In My Own Way”.
Zack shows up frequently to help us on Saturdays, and we’re grateful for his support.

* * * * * * 

We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time, in which the so-called present moment is felt as nothing but an infinitesimal hairline between a causative past and an absorbingly important future. We have no present. Our consciousness is almost completely preoccupied with memory and expectation. We do not realize that there never was, is, nor will be any other experience than present experience. We are therefore out of touch with reality.                   -  Alan Watts

Guilty as charged!

For this reason, I love to come to the garden. There is, for me, “nothing to do that must be done”; I, worm lady,  have had long absences yet when I return the worms are flourishing. I also enjoy trimming the wild areas, or the sweet potatoes,  back so they do not overtake more than I think they should. I like to leave them looking “natural”. When I am absent the garden boundaries are not overrun - too badly.

I see Cindy planting seedlings, yet if she did not the seeds would be planted.  Colleen, Cathy, Maria, Zack, are here  doing the compost, the planting, the preparing of garden beds, sifting dirt, greeting visitors, weeding, preparing seedlings -- all the many garden activities which are listed each Saturday on a chalk board. Marc - painting the new cedar shed with preserving stain -  hurrah that he has taken this on (and many other one-off projects ) . Ellen is  visiting New York this particular weekend… and there are others who maybe or may not be present any given Saturday. Let me not fail to mention the “garden lilies” who come at their scheduled weekday of their choosing to water the growing plants and experience the presence of life growing, continuing, being as it has always been when humans co-operate with nature which is, in a temporal sense, timeless.  Humans invented time.

Our garden has a different organizational structure than many community gardens. It is organic. There is the pattern - the DNA - we turn up on Saturdays, and have organizational meetings once a month in which the president leads the agenda. Attendance is optional and appreciated. As for the material garden, each person follows their own inner light as to what to do. Some, like me, do their own thing. Others choose whatever task appears on the To Do Today board.

Pater, pattern, DNA; Mater, material, this.  Alan Watts is an exponent of co-arising. Freedom emerges within structure. Structure enables freedom to flourish.  Hey, there’s a bit of a political message there - come to the garden and share the joy and the acceptance and the mutual labor for our common good. Enjoy the present reality without stress, Saturdays (9-12 am, more or less). 

See you!

Elizabeth E Mitchell, *a.k.a. Lyrical LIBbe (Be Liberated)
Silk Painting and Studio Experiences.
www.elizabethmitchellstudio.com

 Really, truly, it's a huge deal this time. 
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