I may enter a zone of transcendence, in which I marvel at all the accidents of fate, since the beginning of life on earth, that led to my genes being created and my standing in this particular garden in a contemplative and imagining mind. I’ve been reading recently how reflection evolved. What a fascinating solution to the rigors of survival … how amazing that a few basic ingredients — the same ones that form the mountains, plants, and rivers — when arranged differently and stressed could result in us.
More and more of late, I find myself standing outside of life, with a sense of the human saga laid out before me. It is a private vision, balanced between youth and old age, a vision in which I understand how caught up in striving we humans get, and a little of why, and how difficult it is even to recognize, since it feels integral to our nature and is, but I find it interesting that, according to many religions, life begins and ends in a garden.
~ Diane Ackerman, Cultivating Delight: A Natural History of My Garden
breezes at dawn 