The Violets in the Mountains have Broken the Rocks...

Grooves: Plush (Rory Eliot - who I had the honour and joy of befriending when I worked as the art director for a fashion brand in Cape Town a few years ago, and we sponsored him and his band in clothes and publicity/gigs.)

Beverage: Earl Grey (it's that delicately decadent bergamot it's scented with... hmmm...) from a white teapot, festooned in painted pink floral filigree - and sipped from a cup handmade by Nosiphiwo: from the forming of the virgin porcelain, to the painting and glazing. (Hence why I recruited her so quickly into the Oodade ranks!)


Weather: deliciously cool, calm and drizzling with a misty rain that transforms my garden into a rainforest paradise!



After my last blog entry about the glories of our Makana municipality, the reactions it catalysed made me realise just how mindblowingly heart-based this whole South Africa/UK is: people react, their hearts volatile, and their brains not quite engaged. Facts are ignored, and fears and ideals blindly embraced. {Because I absolutely avoid conflict whenever possible in my lust to be loved and liked be everyone, writing about such a layered and paradoxical situation is pretty tough. I find myself wanting even those who negate what I have to say to accept the experiences that have shaped my understanding of the 'in vs out' South African dilemma. To accept my facts and feelings as a kind of living parable about how the grass can be greener on the other side only if you water it with your pro-UK convictions, and taking extra-careful care to tend the weeds of homesickness that creep into the garden of your heart, mercilessly.

A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself.  Forests are the lungs of
our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.
                                                                               { Franklin D. Roosevelt }

I refuse to have an emotional attachment to a piece of ground.
At one end of the scale it's called patriotism, at the other end
of the scale it's called gardening.
{ Bob Shaw }

 

As the gardening guru of the book I'm reading says, "Weeds are a mirror of the condition of the soil - so pay attention to them and use them to read the condition and health of your soil." (I ad-libbed that - sorry, Jane!)  Weeds can be suffocated, blow-torched away, pulled out at the roots or poisoned to death. Or, they can be seen for what they are: a symptom of the poor condition of the soil : acknowledged, weeds can be a blessing. Weeds can spur you into redesigning your garden, getting you more in touch with your earth, improving the health of your soil --- and, as a consequence, the fruits it bears. (Let's hope that wasn't too obscure an analogy?!)

 

The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks.
{ Tennessee Williams }

Anyway, as someone who thrives on getting so messy with paints and glues and other random art materials that it has shocked the socks off some people, I've not really taken the same pleasure in getting dirty in sand and soil. But perhaps that's more to do with my terror of the spiders that lurk behind leaves, ready to pounce! But, since buying The Virgin Gardener and reading my pops-in-law's Jane's Delicious Garden, I've had an epiphany: we are one with the earth. (Not the New-Agey sort of 'One', but 'one' in the sense that ... (*oh gosh* I've been reading an anthology of quotes about gardening -- and they're all so perfect : the most perfect and practical philosophy, that I can't quite find my own words now... And to simply cut+paste a thousand quotes onto this page would be an enormous cheat... I think I'll go away for a few days to dig deep for my own words about this discovery that is slowly changing my life: my outlook, the pace at which I live and love, my priorities... Come back in a few days, ok?)

In the meantime, here are some of the fruits of my labour: each one a miracle that heals, delights, soothes and excites.  (My favourite plants right now are succulents - and, quite fortunately so, what with this Eastern Cape drought which means water is too precious to waste on acres of lawn and thirsty plants! When we move into our new little plekkie at the end of the month, I'm going to get rid of most of the lawn and replace it with vegetables and succulents, layed happily between winding paths of stones...)