Picture found at http://www.google.com/imgresimgurl=http://franknotes.files.wordpress.com/2007/03/cyclamen.jpg&imgrefurl=http://franknotes.wordpress.com/2007/03/&h=303&w=400&sz=62&tbnid=dIbCVUSPFprlxM::&tbnh=94&tbnw=124&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcyclamen&usg=__BFyUx7zcIMNcp0zVV5fYz_RMIo=&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=6&ct=image&cd=1

There is something of the soul in gardening.  

I think it's because we are directly involved in the work of our Father.  He who gave us all things through the offering of his Son.   And so we plant, and re-plant, and prune and observe the miracles of life around us, understanding that there are seasons and cycles, and times for blooms and times for the supposed barren, which are really just preparations for the perpetual manifestation of life, and the sweet promise of immortality.  

Our minds, as humans, are small.   Although we like to believe they are more expansive in view, understanding and depth of feeling, there are days when we realize the importance of simple repetition in our eternal progress.  Maybe this is why the work of a gardener is so good.  It is a constant reminder of birth and death, of health and sickness, of understanding and learning new things, of being surprised or saddened when something happens you were not that you were not intending out of it's time.  Over the years as we dig, fertilize, revitalize, we are understanding God a little more.  And he is teaching his children.  

Then there are moments when you suddenly take a step back from it all, hoe and shovel, seed and sprout, and you see this is the case.   Moments like yesterday morning when my father called to tell me that my Grandma, my mother's mother, had passed on.  

And all day I have been remarking on the ethereal beauty of the pedals on my cyclamen flower;  their delicate glory hovering for a time in their mortal state, as we all do.