backyard parables (Margaret Roach, 2013)

Roach, Margaret.

The backyard parables / Margaret Roach. -- first edition.

Summary: "a memoir by the author of And I Shall Have Some Peace There about how Margaret Roach's surrender to gardening saved her life" -- provided by the publisher

1. gardening -- philosophy.

2. gardening -- psychological aspects.

3. Roach, Margaret -- philosophy. 

4. parables.

5. Roach, Margaret.

6. women gardeners -- New York (state) -- Columbia county -- biography.

SB454.3.P45R63. 2013

635.01 -- dc23

p.xiii

What is a parable?

   I came to the start of my work on  The Backyard Parables  semi-ignorant of what a parable is, even though I was aware all long that the word -- which I know derives from the Greek parabole (e with a dash on top), for "juxtaposition" or "comparison" -- would be the main event of the book's title.  I had in fact suggested the title myself, but when I delivered the proposal with  The Backyard Parables  typed confidently across the top, I thought, as I suspect others may, that all parables were in the New Testament, stories a man named Jesus told to his disciples and other followers in attempts to articulate aspects of life and God.  I vaguely recalled from my brief, none-too-rigorous religious instruction that they read like extended analogies or metaphors, meant to shed light on something other than the facts of their actual plot.

p.xiii

No religion corners the market, though, and the ones in the New Testament were not the first, nor the last.  There are parables and parable-like saying in virtually every cultural tradition and religion throughout history:  in Hinduism, in Buddhism (as well as from philosophers of the Confucian tradition, and from the ancient Greeks, such as Socrates and Aristotle). 

p.xiv

For all their often-acrimonious differences, the root traditions and most holy books of Islam (the Koran contains forty parables), Christianity, and Judaism agree on at least two things;  that parables are an effective way of teaching, and that it is hard to find a more bountiful source of compelling script material than the examples set by the natural world and mankind's interactions with it. 

p.xiv

   Parables are not fables -- that is, there are no fantastical happenings, such as talking animals, to entertain.  Who needs such invention when you have the distinct character of each season and its displays of the almighty elements -- when you have the natural world, 

p.xiv

   There is one definition of parable that I like best, from contemporary New Testament scholar Kyle R. Snodgrass.  Parables, he says, are "stories with intent," and that phrase became the title of his massive work on the subject, published in 2008.

p.xv

   "I never thought about it before listening to how you spoke about your place today," said said, whispering almost conspiratorially, as if we were back upstairs, in the church nave, "but now I do think I'm intimate with my garden, too."

 

p.xvi

"not two", or Advaita, 

Advaita, Sanskrit, literally, "non-duality"

[[ was unable to re locate the URL link for the following TEXTual note ]]

understanding duality : good vs. evil, dark vs. light, wrong vs. right.  This is duality.  It assumes that there are two opposite extremes and it's either one or the other.  good or bad.  The problem is:  assuming (there can only be one or the other) is not always correct.

Non-duality sees everything as inter connected.

And you are a part of it all.  Not separate.

The principle of pure interconnectedness ( = oneness) expresses that you are one with the universe, with nature and all living things. 

You already carry the pure awakened consciousness within you. 

p.105

Remember which way the sun travels in summer, and don't accidentally put someone who'll be small on the shady side of someone who'll be tall (unless it's intentional, such as to shade summer salad).

p.105

Water deeply on a regular basis, drenching the entire root zone.  With a sprinkler, this takes many hours per section of the garden.  Soaker hoses or drip emitters are more direct if properly placed in beds.