On learning through direct experience
It’s called show and [then] tell for a reason
I learned to value only that which truly activates what is in my heart. I came to value those experiences which activate my heart as it really is. I sought, more and more, only those experiences which have the capacity, the depth, to activate the feeling that is my real feeling, in my true childish heart. And I learned, slowly, to make things which are of that nature. – Christopher Alexander
August 18, 2024
Giving it your all and then giving up
Though I’ve discovered and absorbed information from books, it’s really been through direct experience that I’ve learned to grow things like herbs, flowers, and vegetables, as well as harvest, forage, and preserve plants. I’ve had teachers, mentors, and farmers show me the way. As with any artist who becomes consumed by their love and craft, I have never been without a small garden. I consider the one in which I tend today as my living breathing creative studio.
This is not to say that I haven't done my fair share of reading and study via books, picture indexes, and constituent biographies. I have indeed. At times it’s not only complimentary but essential. Yet I have to say that something about the book/digital/read-only approach falls flat, meaningless even, without real life interaction.
I was reminded of this while hosting a friend of mine in the garden for a morning floral design salon. Half the time was spent outside in the garden. Where I truly believe the spark ignites. This is when plants can, quite literally, draw you in. We talked about insects and the life cycle of the butterfly, all the variety in petal color on display, and every stage of life so beautifully expressed in the fragrant flowering coriander. Everything was alive – a proper show and tell. Oh, that’s what that is or that’s what that looks like….This side of flower gardening, thankfully not completely obsolete, I find essential for what I like to call the expression of sensual wisdom.
On living in harmony with one’s surroundings and one another
In Patience Gray’s remarkable codex of slow humble living in the hot Mediterranean, Honey from a Weed, where good cooking is really just home cooking, and people, land, salt, sand, and sea explode in a pace of life I can only imagine is as gloriously spacious as it is sparse, she talks about this kind of transmission. The plant wisdom that sustained life was handed down from mother to child and completely unsupported by literacy. One didn’t need to read to know which plants supported life. “The question now is – without Greek village ladies, Etruscan Dirce, and little girls like Eugenia, how are people to begin to recognize and identify plants?” She goes on to say, books I suppose. However they are slower and not as certain. I agree with her sentiments. Yes, books are what will be required for consultation, yet are irreplaceable to a lifestyle saturated in the act of being shown and taught directly.
You learned by stooping down and gathering in the company of a wise one. You knew from being outside in the landscape. You saw the bigger integrated picture: the context, the proximity of what else grew nearby, its particular root system, how it expressed from tender shoot, to flower, to seed formation. From its surroundings you would come to know its allies, or how it positioned itself in relation to the sun. Most importantly you would learn how to identify similar looking species which may be endangered or poisonous.
Wild edible ‘weeds’, either for medicine, cooking, salads, seed, leaf or root, have sustained people historically throughout the spring and into late summer. They were known not through texts, images, or words but through daily walks or seasonal encounters.
People often ask me how I know what I know. How I learned to grow a garden. I chose this path over twenty years ago. I lived and worked on farms and had mentors who taught me in the field. Reading was optional though not required. I paid attention. It was about experiencing the world empirically: seeing, feeling, tasting, and smelling.
Reading, on the other hand, I find to be more an act of synchronicity. Static words on a page inevitably remind me of something alive and present and rumbling around under the surface of my awareness. It reminds me of the past or future or expands my sense of now.
The irony is not lost on me that I’m writing all of this for you to read. Sometimes I wonder, have we lost the patience or even the access to empirical wisdom? Thankfully, I don’t think we have. If you want to be an excellent couples dancer or actually speak a new language, the work has to come to life, in real time and place.
I think that’s why Patience Gray’s words had such an impact. It reminded me as well as reassured me that some things are meant to be shared in person. It’s how I came to understand what I know about gardening and herbalism. For the last few years I’ve tried to translate my knowledge, passion, and enthusiasm about gardening as online offerings. From a mastering gardening course, to garden design consultations, to floral salons (this final one I see potential for the sole reason that it’s in person and thereby resonates with everything I’m talking about.)
Still, I’ve found it to be difficult. I know it’s possible. I’ve seen others do it, at least superficially or from afar. I don’t know their personal ruminations, the nuance, the business struggle or what is really unraveling behind the scenes. Maybe I could have positioned it or marketed it differently.
As I reflect on all of this, what comes to me is allowing the garden and my relationship with it, just be. Be what it is: a realm of peaceful devic beauty that brings a sense of vibrancy to so many aspects of my life. A little wild and a little cultivated, but most of all a place where I continue to learn by stooping down and gathering in, with my ears listening and my nose smelling….
Yours, Erin
Resources:
Patience Gray, 1986 Honey from a Weed, Fasting and Feasting in Tuscany, the Cyclades, and Apulia. (Prospect Books: London) 193.