~ starting a garden,/ re. rooting.

On 23 January 2012 03:42, Martin Law <martin.rainbowmaker> wrote:

fifty-four change of address moves since leaving the parental nest, culminated in the first stable and satisfactory present one on a housing estate.

satisfactory, in that, while not being the first garden I have established from scratch, it does have adequate space to do it again. thirty-seven and a half feet square out the back, with also a sizeable front garden.

an opportunity to put down roots, after a half century lacking such. the previous address having only a comic/tragic claustrophobic three feet of gravel, totally shaded by a fifteen foot high surrounding block wall.

so that, three years ago now, this present address was a welcome opportunity to establish roots and grow food.

the square patch was overgrown, having never been cultivated. the previous two year's harvests from it have carried me through most of the winter. a timely re.rooting synchronized with the impending systems’ crash.

being a painter, I approached the challenge as an artist approaches a canvas. with fertile imagination and a love of the materials. it was mostly long grass at first. I loved the way the wind rippled in waves across it. but of course, the main density of grass is below the surface, that is, roots.

I have never had any inclination to resort to a mechanical cultivator. any more than I would do a painting with an electric toothbrush. so I set to "work", preparing my canvas with spade and fork.

the first thing I did was, clear a space of cut grass in the centre, by hand, with garden shears, old rusty ones I had found. to lie down in the sun and contemplate my next move.

well, a central lawn is nice. especially a twelve foot diameter perfect circle, inscribed with a string and two sharp sticks from the exact centre of the square.

this left adequate space around it for radial arms of enough potential vegetables of sufficient diversity. the only crop-circle for miles around, in an environment of complacent rectangles. I imagined how that must look from up above.

and so, feeling like a cookie cutter I slowly started to separate the green from the brown, enjoying the sharp edge, which would later become a moat. radiating out concentrically as more brown expanded to counterbalance the green. and the brown is thick with roots of grass. the brown is dense and never been dug. there is also plastic, trash, glass, and what became a mound of stones of all sizes.

knowing full well, this will have to be dug and dug again many times to restore it's fertile consistency and texture.

some may disagree, but that's cool. I love the process, and intuitively know the energy and attention won't be wasted. it's my painting, and I'll make it as welcoming as possible for whatever may wish to grow and thrive and throw down it's roots.

and of course, everything did thrive. friends commented that it must be magic, and of course it is. creative energy harmonising with the sacred soil, inseparable from it.

but this intimately relating, with the downtrodden and neglected earth, dreaming of rich loam and fertile abundance, that's a next part of the story for a rainy day.~~~~~

~~~~from martin rainbowmaker.

art by martin law :
- radiant sphere, january 2006   
- window in space, august 2006
- solar quincunx, 2006   

collage by Wfp for moo



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