Ecstasy in the Garden

Go to your fields and your gardens, and you shall learn that it is the pleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower, But it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee. For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life, And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love, And to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy. People of Orphalese, be in your pleasures like the flowers and the bees.

Extract from Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet

In this same way, we can experience the ecstasy of giving and receiving as we move through the garden. Take note, the next time you are appreciating a flower, a plant color, a gnarled tree limb, see if you can feel the mutual reciprocity of the appreciation. Research shows that plants thrive from our loving attention, just as we thrive from the beauty of nature.