Garden & the Cosmos 💗

After waking up this morning, I cleaned the front yard as usual and went on to check my garden for the effects of the pre-dawn rains. The drenched earth felt soft and cool beneath the feet. The tender, small plants were all looking like freshly bathed little kids - clean and happy. The bigger plants and trees were all exuding a glimmer, their limbs soaked in the rain and droopy, as if they were standing in obeisance to that great nourisher of life called Rain.

The millipedes were out for the hunt. In a corner, I saw a couple of them going through the process of bringing their progeny into the world. In another area, a butterfly had laid its eggs neatly beneath the leaves of a flowering plant. Flies were mating. Some buds had started showing up. A few tender blossoms had lost their battle with the rain and had been ignominiously thrown on the ground. Lot of teeny-weeny green spouts raised their heads from inside the wet earth - some of them seeds, most of them weeds.

Amidst all this creation and chaos, something stood up. The rain lilies had bloomed, those white little bulbous ones. And, there was a crowd of tiny-winged suitors all around them. Curious, I went up close and the sight I saw was indeed one of bliss. It was yet another act of creation.

I am sure all of us would have studied about pollination in our childhood. But today, almost three decades after I first got introduced to the concept, I witnessed it in practice. The little suitors had all chosen the brightest and prettiest bulb and were busy seeking her 'favours'. What caught my eyes was how it became a mutually beneficial act of creation and life. The little bugs had received whatever little honey, or other nourishment, she could offer. And she was exploiting their infatuation by sending her 'missives' to her prospective suitors, by sticking her own pollen to the bugs' bodies and legs. It was an act of creation and an example for symbiosis in Nature.

My first reaction, on being witness to this small example of that grand process of Creation that keeps happening all around us, all the time, was one of overwhelming gratitude and piety. I fell on my knees with immense happiness and bliss, and kept watching it for a while. If a small drizzle overnight could spark creation of such wide variety in the small patch of my garden, just imagine the case of this vast wide Universe! The mighty Sun that shines by the process of minuscule atoms, all those stars that are similar to the Sun, the wombs giving birth, eggs and sperm, seeds holding mighty trees, tiny gently shoots, little blossoms that seem to carry the whole tricky blueprint of their species' evolution, isn't that all quite overwhelming to even think about?!

For an assiduous and humble gardener, the little patch of garden may be his whole world. But for a spiritual seeker, that little garden can become the whole Universe. A microcosmic sample of the mighty big powers around us! 💓