O edelstes Grün – most royal green verdancy...

It rained hard; the hill is all mud. The various grasses are shooting up high, thickly clustered, turning the terraced slope into a sprawling meadow. With wet juicy green – the kind of green that feeds and seduces the eyes and soul. The whole backyard is “peppered” with clusters of Chasmanthe (African Corn Flag or Cobra Lily), their tall blade-shaped leaves and orange feathery flowers on long stalks. This plant has been in the garden before I arrived 32 years ago. Clusters of plantain plants, my favorite medicinal ally, are rising high. Stretches of ivy, ground ceanothus, creeping along. Two different camelia trees with deep red sumptuous flowers, a couple of wild rose bushes just starting to bloom in softest pink. Forget-me-nots throughout, yellow oxalis, red pineapple and purple wooly sage, blue-eyed grass, California poppies. The Hellebore under the oaks, the small camelia bush with its huge muted dark-rose blossoms. And many nasturtiums meandering, some with huge leaves, others already showing off their colorful bounty of red, orange, yellow flowers. Each head is painted in a slightly varied pattern. Their faces emit a depth and vibrancy – turning me into a gushing fountain of ecstatic exclamations. Nature – the Original Great Artist.

 

Before the heavy rains bringing in joyous nasturtiums

This spectacular show will be over by July, the garden then becoming a very dry affair. The contrast is huge, and fascinates me. When I try to explain to visitors in August the lush scene of Spring, I know they cannot imagine. And those who come in spring time, don’t understand how dry it will get in a few months. Such is our stark climate in California, in winter often extreme rains, then not a drop for another 6 months. In my backyard, the Live Oaks don’t allow for much watering, also I cannot afford to water the whole hill, and try to conserve in droughts. Nature and climate have been offering so many lessons about change in Karinaland over the years.

With last and this year’s huge amount of rain, several tenacious new grasses are proliferating. They are invasive. Not as pretty as the wild barley, oats, wheat and rye grasses swaying in the wind, reminding me of the grain fields of my childhood. Dormant seeds will be jolted into action, the blue-eyed grass, a beautiful wild flower, is now abundant. Finally, after two decades I’ve gotten a hold of the literally thousands of thistles, by pulling them when still soft from the clay soil, every morning in January and February.

Last Wednesday, I bring home six small pots of native plants from Tilden Botanical Garden’s nursery. Three Manzanitas and two different Ribes (red flowering currant) are planted now. If they like it here, they might grow tall and wide. And one Madrone for the empty spot where my protector Mama Oak resided so magnificently till last July. The new plants are tiny. This contrast impels me to remember that, maybe some 140 years ago, Mama Oak also started small. What a huge and astounding architectural expanse she created with her massive trunk and wide over-arching arms, as well as her extensive roots. A resting and nesting place for many creatures, from beetles to moths, butterflies, squirrels, small birds, to bigger ones like owls, hawks. The list is endless. Since the other Live Oaks are healthy, the animals stayed. I still so miss Mama Oak. She though left her cathedral with me, an empty space of mystery, beauty and gratitude inside my being – as well as a contentedness, for I am gifted and blessed by her presence then and now.

All humans are inspired by nature, she is our great teacher. We just imitate, trying to live up to the original great Artist, with all her never-ending inventions, varieties, surprises, that happen naturally without any of our interventions. Earth and the greening force put us in place, instilling awe, humility. Can we learn and respect? Accepting our smallness, being embedded in evolution, a force much bigger than humans. We need the lessons of the Greening Force more than ever.

A little less than one thousand years ago, the visionary abbess, composer, artist, poet, medicinal scientist and healer Hildegard von Bingen (1098 – 1179) spoke of this greening force. Here in German and English from her writings in Latin:

 

O edlestes Grün,

Du wurzelst in der Sonne,

strahlst auf in leuchtender Helle

in einem Kreislauf

den kein irdisches Sinnen begreift:

Du bist umfangen

von den Umarmungen der Geheimnisse Gottes.

Du schimmerst auf wie Morgenrot,

Du glühst in der Sonne Flammen!

 

Most royal green verdancy,

rooted in the sun,

you shine with radiant light

in the circle of earthly existence

which surpasses understanding:

 You are encircled

By the arms of God’s mysteries.

You shimmer in the red of dawn,

You glow like ember in the flames of the sun!

Translation by Karina Epperlein

Chasmanthe

PS: Since reading Hildegard’s original texts in German and English some 40 years ago – before she became a new age icon – she has been enriching my life as one of my heroines. I will introduce her more fully soon.