RICORDI del GIARDINO

RICORDI del GIARDINO
Memories of plants in the garden

10th December 2013


Plants resonate with us in a wide variety of ways. We relate to plants in  botanical knowledge, a gardening sense, an artistic approach, and in our memories. Old gardens or mature gardens that have been cared for over a long time, such as my own garden,  are especially evocative of memories. My garden is a living repository of many plants and shrubs and trees that evoke memories of the persons who gave them to me.  In fact, my garden, besides being a beautifully living hortus conclusus, is a place of plants that suggests to me the spirits of the persons who gave them to me.

   Some examples. Once, many years ago my father sent a strand of Spanish moss to me in a letter. Now that Spanish moss grows profusely in the row of trees that make up my "jungle patheway" beneath trees. I think of him every time I see the lovely draperies of that moss on the tree branches. My wife's father brought me a root cutting of the Mermaid Rose, Rosa bracteata one Christmas. He joked that he bootlegged it from his home in Texas to us here in San Diego, California--he had hidden it in his boot fearing that it might be confiscated at the state borders.  I have propagated that rootcutting into two massive plants, one that scrambles up to the second story on the sunny south wall of our home.  He loved and admired the Mermaid, its blossoms being an image of feminine beauty. I thank him for his bootlegged gift every time I see the Mermaid in bloom and smell its rosey, fruity flowers, and I think of how much he adored roses.  One more example from the thirty or forty memory plants of my garden: my grandmother gave me a pocketful of Four-O'Clock seeds when I was a boy of six years old. Because of this gifting,  I have grown Four-O,Clocks in all my gardens and grow them to this day. I also have a variegated magenta and yellow variety that I collected in Cefalu, which is very near Trabia where my Nonna Lucia La Rosa was born. When I see the blossoms in my garden, I remember Nonna and how much those bright blossoms must have meant to her in the tiny garden she cultivated among the fumes, noise, and coal grit coated mill town of Hazelwood in the crook of an arm of the Monongahela river near Pittsburgh.
   This winter I got the desire to grow asparagus. I have never grown it before. I suppose it  brings back memories of when I was a young graduate student at the University of Illinois studying English renaissance literature. Winter there was bleak and hard for a boy of the south like me. I had lived and gardened in tropical Miami. Just getting through the winter was for me a personal resurrection.
   One of my joys was driving the back farm roads in the spring looking for those fresh succulent asparagus shoots.   I would spot a strong vigorous asparagus spear, brake my Volkswagen bug hard, pull over to the side of the road, jump out and cut of fresh spear. You had to get out there early on because all the others were doing it too. After an hour or so we had enough asparagus shoots for our dinner. Was there ever a more fresh, spring smell than the juices of the cut spears that had pierced the loamy, sweet, wet spring earth?
   So, I went to the local nursery (Walter Anderson's) and inquired about asparagus roots. Asparagus will mature more rapidly from roots than from seeds or seedlings. From roots,one can expect a few good spears the first spring, but the second and third years are far more productive. All of the asparagus plants along the fence rows near Champaign-Urbana were planted by the birds, so the some spears were an inch thick because the roots were very old.
   First off, one should dig long  troughs in the newly spaded soil, as long as you want them, a foot wide, and a foot deep. Set the asparagus roots top side up and spread out the roots rather carefully. Then, cover the roots with two or three inches of good earth. As the roots sprout, cover them each time with another thin layer of earth. Gradually you will fill in the troughs until they are almost level with the surrounding earth. I like to leave a slight declivity so that the water will have a place to settle and work itself into the roots. It is helpful to cover the thoughs or rows with two inches of good manure every so often. Keep all that well watered in. Once the roots produce spears and you harvest them,  the plants will morph into bushy, ferny plants which will bear seeds (if you have planted seeding varities). These plants will last over twenty years. Right, the birds love the seeds and will spread them all over the garden, starting the process of life and growth all over again!
   My asparagus roots came tagged with the most informative of names. One is UC72, and the other is UC157---how creative and thoughful can the university people get. When I asked the friendly nursery clerk what those numbers meant, she politely made something up. I suppose UC means Univeristy of California. So, I  shall give the plants flambouyant names when they produce spears.
   Just incase, I bought a six-pack of little asparagus plants as a back up. I always do this sort of thing to hedge my bets. And, they are growing well now. As yet, the asparagus roots have not broken the earth. but once we are past the winter solstice, I am sure that they will be sprouting upward to the sun. Excelsior!
   From very early childhood, the only constant that I have believed in is that the earth will always bring forth green grasses and plants in the Spring. Yes, for sure,  there is the loss of living things, but there is also a regeneration. All things change. In the most profound and realistic appraisal, life evolves along side continuous loss and regeneration. Isn't Memory an attempt to retrieve the past, that which is seemingly lost, but indeed is not lost.
   Charles Darwin perceptively and honestly said this when he proved that lowly earthworms continuously digest dead matter and turn it into earth ('mould'-his word) so that it could be the substrait for life again, new life. It's all about digestion and renewal. Darwin is saying that "destruction conserves life". For a complete explanation of this phenomenon, I suggest "Darwin's Worms" by Adam Phillips, a very clearly written little book on Darwin's lifelong fascination with earthworms. Darwin wrote about worms almost to the day that he died.
    And finally, is it not only I who can remember which plants evoke individual people? And I do not mean that I projecting on them; that is I am not laying it on. Or, do the plants have an innate life energy that informs me about the complete history of their past? I am confident there is a sympathetic, telepathic relationship, the way strings of a musical instrument will vibrate, resonate is the word, when any other string is touched.

Monday October 21, 2013

Silence and Silences

 I have been reading and studying Robert Sardello's book entitled "Silence-The Mystery of   Wholeness". Sardello and Cheryl Sanders-Sardello's insights about Silence are indelible. I can tell that I might be getting it, (might) when I think many times a day and at night about what I have read.
   He always capitalizes the word 'silence' as Silence. And, I think that this is for a very important reason. He wants us to understand spiritual-soul Silence in ourselves and in the world.
   Yes, there is a Silence that is the absence of sound, or better yet, the types of sounds that we encounter all day and night long. You know what I mean, cell phones, beeps, loud talking, TV, and interruptions of all kinds. Getting to a place where there is very little or no sound (if almost no sound is possible) is a good starting point. I do not exist in sound of the aggressive, mechanical,  hysterical kind in modern life when I am in my tiny cabin in El Porvenir at about 7,000 feet, in the red-pink glowing granite of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of New Mexico. Ocassionally a pine needle will drop onto the cabin roof and make a very delicate tap, ( a reminder of our existence) as if it is another presence. I can hear this pine needle sound because in the darkness of the night my ears and Soul have been attuned to the ambiant trees, plants, and animals in the forest where my cabina sits. Of course the raccoons and bears are a bit more brash, but they are comforting as well. Yet, this type of Silence is only a good starting point as Sardello suggests.
   From early childhood I have always experienced the Silence of living things, especially the presences of plants, even of particles and objects. Yes, particles as in particles of glittering beach sand in a faomy ocean surf. When I encounter soul presences of plants I experience them as Silences, by which I mean that I feel a blending of myself and the plant or tree or animal that includes my own spirit or soul, in addition to a third kind of presence that is eternal. This is not emotion but a feeling which is a knowing This is the only way that I can explain or talk about this melding or blending, and I know that I am almost failing. If I wrote a poem about this state of Silence perhaps it would be different and more evident.  Sardello in his succinct prose and Cheryl Sanders-Sardello in her beautiful prose poems at the end of every chapter say more clearly what I am trying to say. You would have to read their work yourself, I think.
   I suppose that the other times I encounter this third presence of Silence is when I really experience the soul presence or being of another person. Most people are too into themselves to allow you to do this,  (they don't want you inside) but the very young, the very old, and those of open, sharing honesty often will allow entry. These are whole People of Feeling. Another time during which I experience true spiritual Silence is when I am in the act of creating or making something--I don't even know that I am creating--I simply AM. There is Silence and timelessness. I suppose that early man, Homo Ergaster,  felt the same way when he flaked  stone points.
   Of course, the gardening moment is the act of Silence. That is why so many artists, muscians, and poets love gardening. I am reminded of the wonderful American poet Stanley Kunitz who lived to be almost 100. He adored gardening or whatever one chooses to call a passionate caring for being in the presence of plants. And please consider, I don't mean that sentimental new age talking to plants. And then, there is W. S. Merwin who says that he cannot conceive of writing one line of poetry without being in the presence of plants. I heard him say this on the Lehrer Newshour as interviewed by Jeffrey Brown.
   So, as the Sardellos say, at oneness with the Silence, true inward Silence of our being and the being of nature, evokes a third deep, healing, almost inexpressable Presence in Silence, and that is why there are artists of every kind--painters, sculptors, potters, writers, poets, dancers, you name them--they are countless, even people of all kinds, and yes, gardeners.
   I do hope that I have expressed the insights of the Sardellos with accuracy and honesty. Please read "Silence" for yourselves. For me, Silence in the sense that I perceive it is a great gift.



                                                             Crown of Stars

                          Two nights ago I walked outside my cabin into darkness
                           it was all so still and quiet
                           I looked upward into the ancient tall ponderosa pines
                           way up at the tops as I almost bent over backwards
                           their tops forming a circle in the forest fastness
                           a  deep crown filled with stars
                           stars that looked like bright white flecks of light
                           floating yet falling to earth
                           balanced brilliant and burning
                           energies of envigoration to all the earth
                           the white hot spears penetrated earth
                           and all its creatures-plants animals and mankind
                          
                                                                                       St. Michael's Night
                                                                                       29 September 2013

AUGUST--"in the Name of the Bee" A Plant Meditation

                                             In the name of the bee--

                                             And of the butterfly--

                                             And of the breeze--Amen      Emily Dickinson
                                                                                            Dec. 10, 1830--May 15, 1886

   Plants have within their beings more intelligence than we will ever know. Even the Over Knowers who think they know every thing, all the facts and information, will not ever really touch the Soul of the earth and its living creatures. The Over Knowers are essentially those lacking in sensitivity and intuition because their intellectual egos have dominated their personalities. They have lost touch with the Sophia or Soul of the earth. They are Artiste manques. They often rise to the level of scientist, dean, professor, religious fanatic or simply plain know it all.

   Plants have so many magical properties or characteristics. We all know that their roots go down into the earth; geotropism or gravitropism. And then, there is phototropism: they grow towards the light. Also, they have a sense of touch at which every child wonders when he or she touches a sensitive plant. They can cast about their lovely, sinuous tendrils like a vortex of fingers and arms, grasping for a purchase to hold onto whatever is out there, kind of like a primordial consciousness that has evolved in us as a mind.

   Plants have a characateristic named Thermogenisis. They can create heat. The mitochondria in their cells create heat much as the mitochondria in mammals do; much as our cellular activitiy does. As I was reading about Philodendrons, I came upon the thermogenic properties of the calyxes of these plants. The calyxes, sheathes, (calyx means in Latin large, flat blade) that hold the pointed column of  tiny flowers are capable of producing temperatures up to 45degrees F even when the surrouding air is much colder. I see these sheath calyxes as chalices, or even as grails. They contain a pencil thick column of many tiny flowers and seeds. "Chalice" and "calyx" both share he same Indo-European root.You have seen the spathes or sheathes of Jack-in-the-Pulpits, I am sure. From childhood I afirmed their magical image, and they are magical. They are thaumaturgical--they work magic just as painters and all artists work magic when they to create beauty. Creating beauty that people recognize as such is no easy job: that is why there are so many talkers and very few true doers.  Or, as Gulley Jimpson in Joyce Cary's novel, "The Horse's Mouth" calls the critics, the Crickets! They are always with us and chirping, endlessly.

   I always wondered why the snow melted in rings around Skunk Cabbages in the spring back east.  Thermogenisis. The plants and their spathes warm up enough to encourage their seeds to sprout early in the non snow covered circles of earth surrounding the Skunk Cabbages. I always wondered why the earth circle around each plant happened. The plant actually melts the snow. The warmth from the thermogenic spathe also encourages insects to come and get warmed up, thus making for good pollination.

   Philo-dendron means love-tree. The commonest one is the ubiquitous P. scandens, a beautiful climbing plant seen everywhere in the world as a house plant,well almost everywhere. My favorite philodendron is the closely related Monstera deliciosa that scrambles up outside, the warm side and  top of my piccolo greenhouse. It has large leaves shot through with Swiss cheese-like holes, and it produces a delicious fruit from it spathe, thus its name. Another favorite is P. Selloum or P. bipinnatifidum, hope I have the spelling right. No matter--you know it when you see it here in Southern California. It has huge 16-18 inche leaves and vine-trunks that are 5-6 inches thick embossed with leaf scars that uncannily take the image of eyes; they are wactching us! You will see this plant almost everywhere here as home owners popped it in to get tropical, exotic growth fast. Then, after it grows too big, they so carelessly, mercilously chop it out with a hatchet--aha, more cuttings to make plants for me and my friends! Finally, one more. Philodendron xanadu, a shrubby, low growing plant with leaves like oak leaves, popped in at shopping centers. It takes cold rather well. There are some beautiful specimens in front of Staples at the Plaza of the Four Flags in Solana Beach.

   Philodendrons belong to the Aracea family of about 900 species. These plants are what are loosely called Aroids, having come mostly from the tropics. They have fleshy, thick roots, grow well in rich fibrous, acid earth, and like lots of water at the roots and on the leaves. I take my houseplant aroids outside a couple of times a year to leach out the soil and cleanse the stomata (pores) of the leaves with extravagant quantities of water. I have no patience with purist water conservative people who adore shrivelled up looking plants that look itch provoking. It doesn't take that much water to have a nice garden; cut out the swimming pools, eh?  However, aroids are very comforting and attractive indoors, especially in the winter. As I write at this moment, I and my desk are surrounded by Diefenbachias, Philodendrons, Sanseverias, Stromanthes, and a friendly Money Tree. One container ship sailor told me that the first job every morning was to look after and water the plants. I can't conceive of a sentence or a line of poetry (if am so fortunate) without plants around me in my life, both outdoor and indoor.
  
   One final comment--all Philodendrons are poisonous, and could cause a threat to children and pets, although I have never heard of  a poisoning incident. They contain calcium oxalate which is made up of sharp needle crystals that are poisonous, attacking the vocal chords and causing voice loss, which is very painful and lasts a long time. That is why the aroid Diefenbachia is commonly called dumbcane.  Milk may help alleviate the pain for  humans, including some Over Knowers.

MAY and JUNE    CARE for the SPIRITUAL EARTH a GARDEN MEDITATION


I have been so involved with my garden and writing two columns a month ("The Italian Gardener" and a column on Italian heritage) for L'Italo-Amercano that I've nelected this Garden Meditation for May and June. Some dear friends from Canada have wondered why I've been lax. However, this meditation site has been in my mind and soul for a long time as I garden.
    Three writers who have influenced me deeply are Krishnamurti, Rudolph Steiner, and Robert Sardello. All three of these very perceptive and wise people have voiced deep concern about the care of the Earth. And what I mean here is not some kind of mechanical, chemical, technique ridden approach to Earth. Or, something to chat about at cocktail parties with "experts".  I don't mean some trendy approach that is held by those who rhapsodize about "saving the earth" and have never looked around and inside their houses and seen, really seen, how much every particular materialistic item has been taken, extracted from the earth, and air, and the sweat of human beings. Where in their entitled hazy thought do they think it all comes from--Walmart?
   I mean care for the Earth in the sense of Love and Compassion.
   I praise Saint Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) as one of the best examples of the compassionate human being--the Little Brother Flower. Not the Francis of cement statues with the little bird nestled in his arms, although that is one good way to start knowing him, and I have such statues that I myself have carved of wood. Robert Sardello, founder of the School of Spiritual Psychology, asks us to consider in his wonderful book "The Twelve Virtues"  ". . . Saint Francis as  a true knight of compassion." Sardello has written the most meaningful explanations of compassion that one can find. His writing about compassion is so very clear and truly helpful, practicable, not the usual self-help hype that we see so much of nowadays. Also, one has to read Francis'  "The Canticle of the Creatures". I first came upon this canticle over fifty years ago when beginning my lifelong study of Italian literature. It just so happens that Francis' beautiful canticle is perhaps the first literary work in the Italian  vernacular. Before his time, most Italian writers wrote in Latin. So, the "Canticle" is a linguistic-literary document of the Italian language, but far more than that--a spiritual achievement in words.
    The "Canticle of the Creatures" praises all creation as infused, imbued with the spiritual energy of God.  Steiner would call it etheric energy, and Krishnamurti calls it the "Presence" that he often mentions in his "Notebooks". For me, I suppose it is a kind of panthesitic imbuement, what I've felt from boyhood, much to the disappointment and chagrin of my academic and churchly superiors:
                          " Lord, most high, almighty, good, yours are the praises, the glory, and the honor, and every blessing. To you alone (Ad te solo), most high, do they fittingly belong." Prose translation by George Kay from "The Penguin Book of Italian Verse", 1958.
   Please notice that Francis uses the familiar Italian usage of "te" like "tu", not the formal "lei", "you", when addressing God. He does not talk to God in the third person as when addressing a judge or the court.  There is no distance.

"Lord" doesn't go over too well with me. I think of some Royal Baronet or such. But I do know what Francis intended to mean. In the Italian of the thirteen-hundreds, the Italian the words of his poem are "bon Signore" which have a gentle, respectful, graceful tone of diction and connotation.
    Writing his "Cantico delle creature'' in the vernacular Italian (the vulgate) has great significance because the common people, the outcasts, the ill, the suffering, the birds and wolves, were the substrate of Francis' approach and teachings of compassion. He embraced all of human kind, and every particle of the Cosmos, and all social classes, and as you well know, even lepers whom he was not afraid to kiss.
   I think of Francis as a precursor to the great English poet William Wordswoth. Wordsworth thought or professed to be writing in the language of the common folk. Not true at all. The folk never sounded as Wordswoth wrote.  William frequently walked the backroads of England with his beloved sister Dorothy, his muse-like artistic medium; read Dorothy's letters and see what a great poetic spirit and writer she was, and she got very little recognition in her life, except from her beloved William.  They both met met up with the disinfranchised, the sick, the poor, the weird, the emotionally disturbed, the wounded from the wars.  He was not afraid to talk them, to be open to them, and to let them tell him their stories. He looked into their faces and sought to know who they were. William and Dorothy talked about these people during their long, evening conversations.
    A good example of "meetin' up" is his "Resolution and Independence" (1807), a poem about an old war vetreran, a leech gatherer who has nothing to his name except his bare legs and feet with which he wades into the ice cold pools to attract leeches. The sucking leeches adhere to his legs; he picks them off and sells them to  physicians and healers. He is Independent and resonates with Nature. Wordsworth found gold when he perceived the soul of that old leech gatherer and incorporated it as the archetype, the universal symbol of the  man who gives of himself, gets what little he needs to live, and more importantly,  serves. Also,Wordsworth  saved himself for poetry and  himself for life in that fateful meeting on the moor. Wordsworth had what is called a "privileged moment", a "spot of time", as he termed it, that told him what life is really about. He got up off his knees, as Nietzsche recommends.  And, of course, the leech gatherer is Independent and free,  thus far! Although his life is very hard and tenuous, he has faith and character and resourfulness, and no medical  insurance to boot!. He is a lily of the field. I think you will really like this very powerful poem. It has grown on me over the years and I dwell on it often. When I reread it as I have just now, I feel better about my life.
     Well, my tomatoes have grown very well and some even have "fruits" that will be ready in a few weeks. Commercial, chemical fertilizers such as Miracle-Gro tomato fertilizer once a week in solution makes 'em grow. However, I now have come to use organics, those natural fertilizers that are gentle, long lasting and very effective. Organic fertilizers are made of natural constituents that do a lot for the soil, so in using them you are replenishing  the Earth. They enhance the earth that the tomatoes grow in because they contain mycorrhizae, a fungus that forms a symbiotic relationship with the plant's roots, thus delivering nourishment and water very effectively. Chemical fertilizers, although they have a place, (probably left on the store shelf) don't enhance the earth and feed the plants.  Think of mycorrhizae as little, whitish baby roots entwined among the big plant roots. The the little roots or fungal strands embrace the big roots, uptake water, and feed them. What could be more Natural?
   I have noticed that chemical fertilizers hit plants hard. They give a big boost at first like a double shot of espresso on an empty stomach. But then they wear off. The earth or soil takes on a dead look and feel. I can feel it with my fingers when I handle this chemicalized earth, and it does't smell good. And then, guess what? The plant must get another shot of coffee to maintain how it looks. Familiar? Also, with chemical fertilizers, leaf-tip burn and spindle-growth occur more readily during hot weather. "Dr. E. B. Stone" and "Dr. Earth" are two good organic fertilizers. I use them in small increments once a week, and in about two weeks I see plants that have rich leaf textures, good even growth, and productivity--- tasty tomatoes coming soon!

Here are some "Champion" tomatoes, and in the 2nd photo, butterfly weed, Japanese Negi bunching Onions, and tomatoes.

 

 

   Also, just stand there and water the tomatoes by hand. "Stand and deliver" as the opera singers say. Use the thick stream of water from the hose to stir up the soil around the plant, and always water before you fertilize, and then water again to wash the fertilizer in. Without pre and after watering it would be like coffee on a empty stomach. I have little use for drip and automatic irrigation "machines"---another pvc application. They put people, especially the so-called "master gardeners" with their trendy plastic name tags,  out of touch with the garden and its plants. I have knocked on many a neighbor's door and informed them that their automatic waterers are on the blink and that their water is flowing down into the street sewers, (you can quess how much they like me) and woe to those who depend on these devices while on vacation. I've seen it many times. Ah, the marvels of technical, time-saving mechanics, all designed (if used soulessly) to make us removed from the Spiritual Earth. I love to stand there and water, while I feel the garden ambiance and observe what those beautiful plants are saying to me.

APRIL--THE MONTH of OPENINGS

March is almost past, but we are coming up on the Vernal Equinox, about the 21st of March, so they say, which is another powerful turning point. 'Vernal' comes from the Latin for veneration, flourishing, and the opening of young leaves within a bud; and 'Equinox' is Latin for equal night, this being one of the two times per year when day and night are approximately of equal length. The celebration of Easter is calculated from the Vernal Equinox, that time during which all of nature ressurrects, gains momentum to a new existence.
   April is the month 'par excellence' of beautiful epiphanies, many of which are bittersweet twinges of ecstacy and pain, which in lovely ephemeral moments very subtly suggest, or at least intimate, death. It is also the month of the unexpected, of tricks, of things that seem terrible yet provide a seedbed for growth. The word  'April' comes from the Latin 'aprire" to open. Allow me to explain how I feel about this. Those happenings of April--such as the first pure flowers and scents--are so intense and subtle in their spiritual being, in their living moment, that I feel they will not last physically forever. They will not last in  time, but they will last in the eternity of the Soul. So, I see that these moments must be appreciated and loved as they are. The poets knew this. Especially Rainer Maria Rilke--"Be ahead of all leaving" from his Sonnets to Orpheus, "Sonnet 13, II".  Human beings and April blossoms are complicitly inseparable. Emily Dickinson said "every flower a resurrection".  I look at a flower and I hear her words as though she is living in my ear. I believe her!
   I would like to quote Robert Sardello again.  He has said it so well as no one else has as far as I have read; Sardello says "it is no accident nor just a personal "quirk" that the new elected pope ( Jorge  Mario Bergoglio of Argentina)  chose the name of Francis. . . ." from St. Francis of Assisi. St. Francis is the Spirit of Love for nature and mankind.When we love and witness nature we are doing something that nothing  else in the cosmos can do. Nothing else can bear conscious witness as  human beings do. Nature needs us--to bear witness. Otherwise, where would the caring exist? Are not St. Francis and his followers called the "Little flowers"? I fiorellini who care. Evidently, one need not be a "true believer" or a member of the instituion to see the truth of  this universal phenomenon, and  Pope Francis acting within the Roman Catholic Church  has acted as vehicle for this spiritual archetype, which is so openly positive to all. I believe that his name, Francis, Francesco, Francisco, Franciscus is a portent symbol for that opening of doors that has already occurred, and it will continue.
   I planned to open this plant-meditation with practical directions on how to grow Freesias, but I could not contain myself until I expressed the above comments. Anyway, when I smelled the first scents of my Freesia leichtlinii a few day ago, it was like a sweet fresh kiss, like the ones all of us have received and given with our first girlfriends and boyfriends when we were young. Perfumers will never be able to imitate the scents of Nature, although I do love their Neroli. I suppose it is best that perfumers remain artists of scent and create beautiful scents of their own making. They have indeed created some lovely scents. I think of them as artists, magicians, alchemists.
   Freesis derive from South Africa and are comfortable growing in the mild climes of California and the Riviera, as Pizzetti and Cocker write. I will always  tell you who says these things and when they are not of my own generative experience. Yet, when I do write from living experience, I feel free to proceed honestly at length. Too many "writers" these days copy, plagerize, others' words  as though they originated them,  and they do it unknowingly or too casually. They think that because they have thought similar ideas at one time or another in their lives, that they can use them as though they own them. And, some so-called artists lift poems and images at random. Of course, I feel quite differently about this. Lifting is intellectually dishonest and it is bad scholarship as well; those who created the primal work in publications or other venues have rights. There are such things (in most cases) as copyright laws. Actually, in all truth, no one can ever imitate perfectly another person's work, unless, perhaps, one has devoted a lifetime to it as some professional forgers have that I have seen in television documentaries. But even so, it is wonderful to have a work from the hand of the original artist--it is somehow ensouled with a special spirit. I consider such work as a remnant of the artist.  Finally, lifters come off as pretentious phonies. And, this can be perceived by sensitive observers. What other does an artist have than his or her original creative productions whether they be words, images, or music?  I say this for myself and for all my fellow artists.  Yes, ideas and images are universal, but some people work hard to produce them in a particular artistic, original manner for a living, and if not for a living there is certainly a moral integrity involved.
   So, we get cold down to about 38F here in Del Mar where freezing rarely occurs, but Freesias can stand temperatures down to 20F with ease (Pizzetti and Cocker.) And, they are pretty easy to grow. Buy the corms or little bulbs in the fall, plant them in a very sunny location about 2-3 inches deep, water them in. Don't even worry about them all winter.They will suprise you in the Spring. Freesias grow best in a loamy, sandy, well-draining substrate, commonly called earth,  although I have had mine growing in sandy clay for the last thirty years. They have even naturalized from seeds among the gnarled old roots of my olive tree. Some I planted, some simply migrated.
  The F. leichtlinii are blooming now, sending out envigorating scents. I bring a few blooms into the dining room, and at dinner the room is rich and bountiful.
   Freesia lechtlinii has cream flowers streaked with greys and a faint violet. Other Freesias, the hybrids, are red and purple, yellow and white, orange and violet, single and double petaled. There many colors among the Dutch and Tecolote hybrids. They really brighten up the garden during these days when the clouds are deminishing and the sun is out most of the time. My favorite garden writers Ippolito Pizzetti and Henry Cocker in "Flowers, A Guide for You Garden", present the best cultural, historical comments. They are equals of Helen Perenyi--"pare intra pares."  And, I mean by 'cultural' significance the complete range of information from practical growing to the mythological, to the historical. And, the prints are in beautiful color taken from "Curtis's Botanical Magazine". "Flowers" is published by Harry N. Abrams, New York, and I treasure my inscribed copy--it was given to me by my father, a gentle gardener,  years ago, 'molti anni fa'. I think it is out of print, but do work to find it and get it if you can. You can bequeath it to friends or children or grandchildren. Most of all you can savor enjoying it in the present. Remember what Rilke has said about that.    Always, best regards to you,  and may you have health, and happy,  rewarding gardening. Frank.
  

FEBRUARY--NATURE WARMS--PLANTS and ANIMALS AWAKEN

The sky is a deep blue, the sun is getting higher and heating up surfaces and the air now, and the plants and animals are waking up. My red-eyed box turtle of forty or so years has come out of hibernation and eaten a first-of-the-season hearty meal. He luxuriates in the sun which heats his leather-brown, hard shell. My Gulf box turtle of fifty years is almost awake but not quite ready to eat yet (still under her heap of leaves). It is always rewarding to see that in their Natural wisdom these creatures have survived six or seven months of cold sleep. How do they do it? From my boyhood, the awakening of the turtles has always been a time of regeneration,  a resurrection, a reassurance that the grass and plants will grow again, always. Death and rebirth are a marvelous mystery.
   The word, February, derives from the Latin 'Februarius" month of purification and expiatory offerings. I can understand that; the first thing that my turtles do is to soak in their pond, expell winter's wastes, and drink an inordinate amount of water. Then they eat. February also means fever. All of nature has a slight fever, and the plants and animals are heating up, and  do not forget that the purpose of  a fever is to cleanse, both the body and the Soul. Heat and passion go together.
   I have planted sets of kale, romaine (two varieties), napa cabbage, and collards. The onions are about a foot tall, and today I shall plant garlic, that magical, healing herb, which will come to maturity in late August. I don't know why people are so against, squeamish, with garlic, garlic which has served people since before the Egyptians. Maybe they have no concept of good food or of the exotic. Or mayby they forgot how to cook, or are too lazy to do it. Good cooks know that cuisine does not exist without garlic. My Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Mexican daughters- and son-in-laws, and other relatives all use it. The Parsis (a branch of the Persians) make a wonderful mixture of ginger and garlic which they incorporate into many foods. Bombay cooking can't exist without it. The Parsis who came from Persia over a thousand years ago created a unique culture and cuisine, first on the island of Diu off the Indian coast and  then in Bombay (Mumbai, Bombathia) itself. There is a well written, wonderful book of honest first-hand experiences by Niloufer Ichaporia King that gives recipes and the history of the Parsis in Bombay. It is called "My Bombay Kitchen".  I have learned so much (about cooking and about myself) from it and am grateful to her. She has the cuisine and culture in her blood and psyche. All recipes and cookbooks should be genuine first-hand accounts of cooking and culture. Not imitations of other people's words. Nor should they be Quickie-Stuff to be thrown together in a couple of minutes.
   Garlic heals. It corrects insulin and glucose levels. I know that from living experience, it improves blood circulation, and cuts down cholesterol. It's a proven fact. But for me, there is nothing more savory than the scent of garlic and olive oil in any food, especially on roasted slices of eggplant, i.e., melanzana, or melangeana as we say in Sicilian, sprinkled with grated Pecorino Romano cheese. Now that really wakes me up! I shall never forget one afternoon nap in Agrigento as the scent of garlic and meleangeana came drifting through our rooms---the landlord was cooking one of those marvelous late noon lunches! You can guess what we ate for dinner that night.
  

JANUARY---TRANSITIONS of SEASONS

Here it is the middle of January and the season is changing. Seasons are the moods of the world or the cosmos, or even more to the point the Feeling of Sophia, the world Soul.
   I see the little changes even now this mid-January. The lateral leaf buds on the roses are beginning to swell up now partly because the the canes have been reduced by at least half. All good rosarians prune roses in January. This allows the plant energy to go downward into the roots, thereby forming  a well of power for the leaves and blossoms to come. Plant energy must return to the earth to be re-manifested in leafage and flowering. This January, again, I bought two new roses; "Mr. Lincoln," and " Peace". As I look through the bare-root rose bins, I muse on the futility of assigning names to roses. I try to forget their names as soon as possible, and more recently I do! What is a name compared to the qinitessentially feminine of fleshy rose petals and their redolent scent--that mysterious enclosing vortex of  of deep, yearning beauty to which Yeats and Rilke wrote poetic witness. How can a plastic plant tag evoke feeling?  All poetry and creativity of any sort is praise of the feminine because creativity comes to the poet through the warm soul-embracing  hands of the Muse. And, believe me, we are not entitled to it nor are we self-annointed. It is a matter of waiting and Grace---

    And so, the planting and growing of roses is natural, as the Earth is the source of the Sophianic as Robert Sardello explains with skill, clarity, and intelligence. So, in taking care of our gardens and our plants, we express care and feeling for the earth. Every time I dig a hole into the earth to plant a rose, I evoke Sophia.
   January is named for Janus, the god who faces both ways. Usually, his double-faced visage is placed over arches through which people pass. I thought about this phenomenom as I stood one wintry, bright sunny day on the Via Appia Antiqua, that ancient Roman road, The Appian Way, that leads out into the farthest ends of the Roman Empire. The massive oaks (leafage like live oaks) were still in green leaf, and the earth was strewn with their fallen acorns about to burst into growth. I collected a few as I always do when there are seeds free for the taking. Evelyn and I stopped at a little, cozy, empty coffee stand where the women were ever so happy to chat in that friendly Italian manner. No one had come in all morning. We were all cold, but the warmth of true meeting kept us all warm, and I began to feel an uncanny atonement with those men who where marching out from the Roman "civilized" world as they knew it. I felt in a timeless moment: "What will I find out there, who and what will I see? What experiences will I bring back to Latium, if I am even fortunate ever to return alive?" As the Roman legions marched through the arches, they passed under Janus's two-face head as a potent reminder of transitional destiny.
   Janus is the god who faces two ways, the god of the limen or threshhold. He is the god of doorways and gateways, entrances and exits. Which are which? The word "limen" signifies the bi-directional experience of Janus. Through doorways we pass, mostly, both ways. The image of the limen began far earlier than with the double faced Janus. Cardea, as Robert Graves tells us in "The White Goddess", is the goddess of the doorway and limen. She is both post and socket of the hinge that opens and closes both ways. A neat fit. Our lives are sequences of Cardea moments. When I think of the most significant turnings or events of my life, they all have the "ring" not the slam of Cardea's door;  a circle life that could have gone either way, but the destiny of the future turned, swung, to me to make me what I am now.
   As side note, and take it as you may, I find it touching that Samuel Palmer, the wonderful English, romantic painter always bowed down and kissed the threshold of William Blake's doorway as he entered Blake's work room. Knowing Palmer as I do from his ensouled paintings and drawings, I believe it, and I think that the story is truely given because of its source. I wish I could study and handle Palmer's work in the British Museum as did my brother Salvatore Joseph La Rosa, a sensitive, very fine and devoted artist.
   Well, my garden is cleaned up, the shrubs and trees are trimmed. The kumquat fruits are starting to ripen, and warmth  increases each day. I can explain that, but how do I tell you that there is a certain plumpness to the earth I walk upon, a kind of softness and springyness that my foot feels? But you know what I mean. The earth feels spongy and damp and alive, and the earthworms are making little mounds of pure earth-detritus. Even my red-eared water turtle Sempre peeps his beautifully enameled chartreuse eyes and  green nose out of the water very early in the morning to see if the rising Sun tells him to crawl up on his rock. It is as though the water surface, the water line between his world and that of air through which he breaks momentarily is a liminal membrane-like lens (a meniscus) between his winter hibernaculum and Spring which always feels eternally new.