the Great Work

I am embarrassed to admit that there was a time when I considered any flower which didn't have a fragrance hardly worth the trouble. Those were the pre-Kyloe days. I know better now. Which is why I'm wondering if we could ever have too many Tecomaria's (Cape honeysuckle with none of the classic honeysuckle fragrance) around the place. They're at their best now, and the sunbirds love them.

In gardening - in life generally - it's not the best idea to put humans first... people as the centre & clincher of every argument. This anthropocentric obsession has got us into a lot of trouble, and the way to get out of it is through a recalibration of our place in the scheme of things. A re-reading of what the great, wise Thomas Berry calls, The Great Story - the wondrous narrative of the universal unfolding of which we are but a part. Call it by the smaller, more familiar terms - evolution, web-of-life - we are woven into an ancient, ongoing, exuberantly creative life story much, much, much greater than ourselves. I like that. Look up at the sky on a clear Karoo night, and you'll know the truth of it.

This remembering of our own Great Story, and the re-shaping of our life to be congruent with that, is what Berry calls The Great Work of our time. In a world which - unarguably I think - has lost its way so completely and so dangerously, I have no better suggestion than Berry's. I like the idea of a personal life which engages with The Great Work, which honours & benefits ALL of life.