Conversations with a Living Garden

By now, every plant has found its place, each one drawn to the space it was meant to fill. Isn’t that a reflection of divine wisdom?

The small ones, the unseen ones — the insects.

A garden that welcomes birds must first welcome insects. They are guided here by native trees and wildflowers, by humble shelters of wood and stone, by the gentle invitation of stillness.

Even what has fallen is not lost.

Deadwood becomes nourishment, a resting place, a cradle for new life. A fading plant may be embraced by a climbing rose, showing us how beauty can cover what once seemed broken.

Wild corners whisper of abundance.

They are both food and sanctuary, mystery and refuge. In every season, Nora’s Garden breathes with hidden life.

And now comes September, a month that balances beginnings and endings. I still sow seeds—parsley, savoy, lamb’s lettuce, radish, garlic. Even as the light softens and the shadows lengthen, the earth receives and gives.

Soon, I will enclose my land with chestnut wood—posts rich with tannin, steadfast against decay. Not only to guard the harvest from wild creatures, but to shape a sanctuary of peace, where plants may flourish and where words may flow. For I long for a place of quiet, where writing becomes prayer, and prayer becomes harvest.

Nora’s Garden expands as my spirit expands. The pumpkins stretch outward like rivers of green, as if they too are reaching for the horizon. And beyond the fruit and the flowers, the true garden is within: a garden of wisdom, a reflection of Jannah. Paradise is not only a promise of the hereafter—it is a seed already planted in the mind and the heart. We are the soil of every movement, and Allah is the energy that sustains us.

September asks of us:

·        To free the tomato from blossoms that drain its strength.

·        To hide cloves of garlic and onions among the strawberries, as secrets waiting for spring.

·        To guide self-sown herbs and flowers to the places where they will flourish.

·        To return what has ended to the earth, so that in compost it may rise again.

And so the cycle continues. I have tested, I have tried—and still, everything grows. Perhaps because I speak to the plants, and they answer. Perhaps because the divine breath moves through every stem and leaf, through every thought and silence. Even when the mind still slumbers in the backyard of forgetfulness, the garden is awake. The garden remembers.