© Carol Bergman 2025
They say, as the gardener, so the garden.
― Aleksandar Hemon, The World and All That It Holds
It's April 11 as I begin this blog post, and it's snowing, the landscape transformed, the budding blossoms frozen in time. Though the storm was expected, the colder temperature was unexpected. Or maybe I wasn't paying attention to my weather apps. I have more than one, just to be certain…of the weather. It's an absurdity taken to its logical conclusion, as Gilbert and Sullivan might have said as they plotted one of their comic operas in a 19th century topsy turvy Victorian world where flirtation was considered reprehensible, woman to man that is. Ever so? Or flashes of light and enlightenment throughout the eons?
"Always the dominant male," my Canadian cousin, George, just told me on a FT call, if I heard his facetious tone correctly, "We have been living in a bubble in our lifetime." If I understand his implication, we evolve, and then we inevitably devolve. The trajectory towards enlightenment cannot strengthen or solidify; it constantly backslides. My historian husband describes these backslides as actions and reactions, political shifts, a pendulum. But what happens when the pendulum gets stuck? How will it get unstuck? When, if ever, will evolution continue unobstructed? That is my question today.
These past few weeks have all had a similar ambience—muddy, polluted--and a percussive beat—cruel, unforgiving, frightening. Maybe it is time to consult the I Ching. If we toss coins will we find some answers to our global strongman/strongmen dilemma, and its inevitable fervor for war? Shall we relinquish our futures to the fate of the toss?
Not a good idea.
Did I read somewhere that the White House rose garden has been obliterated with cement? If so, it's an evocative metaphor. In a recent dream I walked the perimeter of the cemented garden and wept. After this lamentation, I watered the roots of the dying roses on the mulch pile, and replanted them in Greenland.