PLANTING AND NURTURING

This morning I was planting seeds in little pots with housemate Karen Wainberg. We have a sunny window seat on the first floor where our house plants live during the winter. We've moved them all from their light filled perch and have put the starter pots there so we can get a head start when spring finally comes to Maine.

We still have snow on the frozen ground outside. The weather forecasts more snow this weekend. But we have confidence, the spring will come again....someday, and we intend to be ready.

Yes it is a matter of faith, but a faith informed by experience and by the law of nature. (Which admittedly is now under some adaptation due to climate change.) But still we believe that the ground will at some point thaw and little green things will pop up and flowers will bloom. Even here in Maine.

It is like that in the political world too. Last night I did a radio interview on a progressive show in Connecticut and right afterwards an 82 year old man called to ask to be put on our mailing list. He said his children think he is politically nuts and he knows "no one" who agrees with him politically. "Call me when the revolution starts," he concluded. He is losing faith fast but hangs on just a bit, knowing that his radio brings him voices each week of those out planting seeds.

I have learned over the years that many people plant seeds but few stay with them to water and tend them after they are in the ground. There will be no good garden, or revolution, without this necessary tending of the seeds that we sow.

Fruits come to the gardeners that remain steadfast in nurturing the plants in the garden.