Report From PIA – April 17
If you grow plants, things will go wrong. If you are alive, ditto. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth. No matter what species you plant, products you buy, or belief system you subscribe to, you’ll experience set backs.
I spoke to a great group of gardeners today and the projector did really funky things to my images. At first I thought that it was best to continue on, making the best of a bad situation. But as the color got worse and worse, I decided that the situation was intolerable. I stopped the talk and took five minutes to get my projector out of the car and hook it up. All was well again.
It’s difficult to know when we should pursue what we’ve started and shoulder on, and when we would be better served by striking off in a completely different direction. It’s not always easy to recognize the right thing to do. But if the current situation is horrible, what have you got to lose?
If I didn’t have a projector in my car, I might have turned off the visual aids completely and made my points with stories and body language. A speaker needs to be prepared to go in any direction, and do it successfully.
In our gardens and our lives we need to be able to turn on a dime as well, even when that is uncomfortable, inconvenient or unexpected. Life has a way of throwing us curveballs, and like it or not, we need to be able to respond.
When I planted these Castor Bean seeds, all I could think of is that they looked like engorged ticks. Yuck. There is no way of knowing if they will sprout and grow well, or if the resulting plants will have the growing conditions they need to develop and shine. All of life, in and out of the garden, is a leap of faith, and we do the best we can with what comes around.
