Gunilla Norris is a master of everyday spirituality as she has demonstrated in Being Home, Becoming Bread, and Inviting Silence. In this relaxed and edifying volume, she takes us through the four seasons in her garden in Mystic, Connecticut. As the Spanish proverb at the beginning of the book says: "In the garden more grows than the gardener sows." Yes, and Norris always pays close attention to her feelings and emotions, the inner changes and questions that come to her as she does repetitive tasks in the garden. Let this example seep into your consciousness:
"How strange and mysterious
are the ways of God.
Not greening, not flowering
may be a path
to the center as well.
Acceptance of yourself
as you are
and others as they are
is the true potting soil.
All growth starts there."
These words follow Norris's meditation on some roses that arrive in a cardboard box with instructions for planting them. She sees them as vulnerable, a sign of how all living things need tender loving care and "the tenderness of God."
The garden is a place for learning patience, letting go of our need to control, and losing our expectations of how things will turn out in the end. Whether writing about drainage, companion planting, staking, weeding, blooming, beetles, or pruning; the author mines the meanings in these activities and helps us to savor the spiritual lessons that lie in all that we do.
