January 26, 2011

March has been trying to poke its head through this past week. It made it a few times! But not today. That January sun just isn’t high enough to burn through this fog. For a few hours during the March ‘breakout’ I felt the pull of the garden soil on my spirit. Part of the garden takes the form of raised beds. The idea behind the raised bed approach is that the soil warms up quicker, there is better drainage so it dries out more rapidly in spring, and the soil where veggies grow is not compacted by the gardener’s heavy foot.
Soil compaction is a serious problem that has accompanied modern agricultural techniques.
Huge mega-tonned tractors roll over the soil—cultivating, seeding, harrowing, spraying, and harvesting. While the top 5 or 6 inches is fairly loose, the soil underneath becomes very compacted, prohibiting deep root development. The forming of a bed, be it a raised bed or simply an area set aside to not be stepped on, is an advantage I have over the mega-farmer and furthermore it allows me the opportunity of participating in the experience of establising sacred space.
Sacred space is always accompanied by prohibitions. Don’t walk on this bed! “You must not enter the Holy of Holies, lest you die!” (a reference to the ancient temple in Jerusalem) I would not claim that the sacred space of the raised bed in the garden is of the same significance as the Holy of Holies but there is a thin thread of connection which goes far beyond the fact of prohibition. Maybe it is as simple as “Be aware of where you are at. Everyplace is not the same as any other place.” God said to Moses out of the burning bush. “Take your shoes off! This is holy ground. The beds in my garden say, “Keep your feet off! This is special ground.”

The more I think about it, as I finish this cup of tea, the more I wonder if there is much more sacred ground than what I am aware of? The ground where the klldeer lays her eggs. The ground from which the volunteer violet surprisingly erupts….the ground upon which my father suddenly fell and breathed his last….