The Garden as Both Landscape and Teacher

Mary Wolfe is a spiritual director, a weaver of wool and words, a trusted friend, and a devoted gardener. In this reflection, Mary invites us into her experience of the garden as both landscape and teacher, a place that quietly shapes her inner life. Mary, thank you for the warmth and wisdom you have shared here and over so many years.

Mary writes:

Her name is Pacha Mamita, little Mother Earth. Her address is plot 55 in the Capital City Allotment Garden in Victoria, British Columbia. She stretches across 1,400 square feet, held loosely by a wire fence that raccoons climb and rabbits slip through. The gate, worn and simple, swings open with ease, welcoming me, you, and anyone who enters.

The first thing I notice is her fragrance. It rises from the compost, from sweet peas, from sun-warmed blackberries, and from freshly turned soil. It is the scent of life itself. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin once spoke of the fragrance of the feminine, a quiet force drawing all things toward union, toward the deep interconnectedness of life. I greet fellow gardeners, and together we breathe it in.

I set down my basket and slip off my shoes. Straw lines the paths, soft beneath my feet. Today I will water, gather peas and lettuce for the week ahead, and harvest rhubarb for preserves. But more than anything, I have come to sit, to be still.

Science may call it evolution. The contemplative heart recognizes something more, a sacred unfolding, the Secret One growing a body. As I kneel, reach, and gather, I am part of that unfolding. Yet I do not always feel its wonder. There are days when the heat presses in early, when sweat stings my eyes, and I question why I am here at all. It would be easier and cheaper to buy what I grow.

So why do I return?

Because here, I meet what is.

Here, I am grounded in the sacredness of matter. Here, dirt becomes soil, and worms become companions. Here, I remember my place in the rhythm of things. The seasons move through me as they move through the garden. I learn again that death is not an ending but part of the great turning. Even compost carries its own quiet beauty.

This garden becomes a path, leading me from the outer world into the inner one. It is a sanctuary where I meet the Life that gives life to all things. A place where love ripens slowly, hidden in weeds and water, bees and parsley, birds and blueberries.

On the fourth finger of my left hand, I wear a ring that tells the world I belong to one. Few would guess that this beloved is a garden, and her name is Pacha Mamita.