Garden of Earthly Delights

Finding Beauty in Transition, Grace in Transformation

Seasons of Flower and Snow Credit: Robin Stevens Payes

With so much that is unlovely permeating our lives in this transitional moment in a world on fire, I propose to offer words of remembrance to brighten us. To inspire us to live fuller.

After my most recent post, THE FOUR SEASONS, which tracks shocks and shots triggered over the seasons of a lifetime, I was inspired by a recent exchange with

Betsy Maloney

to offer new hope by tracking the seasons from my garden. I wish I could share the perfume of those peonies!

Now, in this Season of tumult, transition and transformation, I wish everyone a moment, a pause, to find in yourself and in the world, Grace, and a Flower-filled Fourth.

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Each Season reminds me of Creation, green shoots, buds and blooms bursting into beauty in my very own Garden of Earthly Delights.

Of the sunny Forsythia, the delicate white and pink petal snow of Cherry Blossoms, and the heavy-headed dazzling white Peonies that lay their heads down after a storm on the return of a neon green carpet of Creeping Jenny crawling underneath, so that I have to pick them right away for a bouquet of outdoors coming in. . .

Of the Day Lilies of Summer that lose their heads to hungry deer, of the fragrant Knockout Roses they munched on for years until I could no longer grow them. . .

Of the End Times of Autumn, transmuting our world in the shift from Spring green, Summer’s deepening green, and the mottling of green’s fading photosynthesis to a bright blood red and orange and magenta and, eventually, brown as the last leaves fall and cover my yard with Summer's memories, even as the one shrub in the corner, under the bridge, whose name I can never remember bursts open in papery pink flowers in November, long past Summer’s balm. . .

And, later still, in a nod to Earth’s evolving blessings, the shift and shiver of cold that creeps in to carry soft frozen water blossoms, that might just be dropped by angels to protect us from the flush of Seasons, temporarily insulating our world from sound and sight, with a brush of white that mutes color’s blush, wrapping us in Winter's snowy blanket. . .

So must we all grow, transmute, transform, bloom and fade, and evolve with the Seasons, though oft bittersweet—blossoming, beckoning, nourishing. . .fading so fast.

Sweet for the memories they bear. Inspiring us with hope at the promise of return. . .

Each Season, a renewal, turning and returning. It is the way of the Earth. It is our way, as people living on Her, with Her, through Her.

The words of Buddhist philosopher of ecology Joanna Macy bid us remember this truth of ours. In the OnBeing podcast, “Grieve and Love with Joanna Macy,” Joanna bids us remember the symbiosis of our existence with the Earth, and the urgency of celebrating it in every stage of tumult, transition and transformation, and at every moment:

There’s absolutely no excuse for making our love for this world dependent on its degree of health, whether we think it’s going to go on forever. This moment, you’re alive. You can just dial up the magic of that at any time.

This moment, we are alive!

Nature’s magic is in bringing us into each Season with new sights, sounds, scents and senses. Showing and showering us with Her blooms; releasing memories; a forever inspiration to wonder at Her abundance, a gift to us all.

Our blue-green Earth bathes us in bounteous beauty at every turning. We have but to imbibe that beauty, and remember.

Unlike the macabre Hieronymous Bosch painting that is the namesake of this post (a work whose modern title is, perhaps more aptly, The Garden of Lusts), Nature invites us into Her creation, and bids us remember and renew in this, and every Season, by celebrating Her Garden of Earthly Delights!