Plants and Philosophers

According to an ancient Chinese proverb the true philosopher spends half his time with books and half cultivating the earth.

According to an ancient Chinese proverb the true philosopher spends half his time with books and half cultivating the earth. One could ask what the connection between these might be – certainly this is not taught in universities. The only way to answer is: go garden a little. Gardening seasons the overly cerebral mind, it quiets the thoughts and passions. But to a head-person, like a philosopher, this will no doubt lead to other thoughts. The point however is that manual labor of a natural variety, with little to no machines (beasts of thinking), acts as a sieve – and this is true of every form of manual labor. Yet gardening adds a very important component which is lacking elsewhere: the humility of non-action. A philosopher does not build wisdom, he cultivates it.

Planting seeds, watering them, covering the ground, watching the green of things or simply waiting removes all pretense of self-aggrandizement. Unlike building, which is more purely human effort, gardening is humility made craft. The gardener does not make the seed with all the potential it contains; he does not create the water nor the groundcover; he does not create the living colors nor the fragrant smells nor the sweetness of the fruit; he does not make things grow. He merely watches and, when needed, cares. Not much more than Grace and Attention are involved. And it is my conviction that the work, if it can be called that, of philosophers is exactly the same: Grace and Attention.

If attentive, then, one sees immediately Grace at work – in the growing of an idea as of a plant. Just like it says in the Gospel: «And he said: So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the earth, And should sleep, and rise, night and day, and the seed should spring, and grow up whilst he knoweth not. For the earth of itself bringeth forth fruit, first the blade, then the ear, afterwards the full corn in the ear. And when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come» (Mark 4:26-29). What do philosophers seek after, if not the Kingdom of God? And how can they attain it? In this Gospel we find the answer: between the actions of sowing and harvesting, there are the very important non-actions of sleeping, rising, waiting and… unknowing.

After spending some time among plants, the philosopher, with his mind at rest and his heart warmed by Grace, will start to notice how the plant is a microcosmic form of the philosopher himself. Like the plant, the philosopher wishes to grow toward the Light; in order not to wither, his roots must be firmly established in the Earth – and this earth in turn must be nourished by the Water of Life. Only then will the prayers of the Philosopher and the Plant be carried above; only then can it breathe. The philosopher and the gardener are practitioners of humility, unless they deceive themselves. If they do, they will kill their garden and suffocate the wisdom they love.

The philosopher and the plant are not like the birds – the saints, ascetics and yogis, which can forget their body and soar to great heights without fear of falling – only coming down when they wish, landing on the tallest branches. The true philosopher is rooted, or is not at all: this is the only way to carry out his mission – a mission of synthesis, of upward movement; dare I say it, of Love. The philosopher is never autonomous – when he is, he withers and dies; he cannot withstand the Light of the Sun (the Knowledge of God) without the warm embrace of the earth and the cooling caress of the water (the help of the Virgin Mary – the incarnation of Sophia). You see, it is in the very name: lovers of Sophia. It is strange that ‘philosophy’ in our day and for so long has completely forgotten both the Love which moves it, and the object of its movement. It is no longer rooted anywhere, and it no longer grows towards anything. Therefore it gives neither flower nor fruit, and hence also no new seeds.

The true philosopher is like the plant, and must always be so: it absorbs the food of the Earth below and the Water and Light from above – and integrates it into his body. Then he can breathe, and what he breathes out ascends to Heaven. If it pleases God it will form new water of life, and rain down on all. Birds carry their prayers in flight, animals run around – but plants, and philosophers, are hermits. Birds and saints move everywhere they please, animals and kings move horizontally, conquering space – plants and philosophers move vertically only. They can be transplanted, but this is only by the will of the gardener – not the will of the plant; the Grace of God, the Master Gardener, not the will of the philosopher.

In watching the life of plants, from their birth to their death, the philosopher begins also to contemplate how True Nature, unfallen, is hidden within the fallen – and he is moved to tears by this revelation. What C.S. Lewis describes as the sweet humiliation of matter, the philosopher-gardener learns by watching life decay and, miraculously, be transformed and transfigured into New Life. Whoever has held in his hand a piece of fertile soil, knowing what it was before (death of all sorts) knows that this is the mystery of Resurrection which Jesus Christ taught us in the Flesh. That is why the true philosopher-gardener will never despise the Flesh as such; he will always see the sweetness in the humiliation of matter.

There are mysteries, furthermore, than one finds in Philosophy only after practicing the art of gardening. For example, from the outside and in a superficial way, it seems that plants grow in soil. But the relationship is not one way: plants not only grow in soil but grow soil themselves. In the same way the philosopher must not merely know, but share what he knows – and without this sharing he is bound to live in arid earth. Just like the plant the philosopher gathers and is nourished by the light of knowledge, and if he is humble, he acts as a vehicle to share this light with the earth. And yet it does so in what the Chinese would call wu wei – and what the Gospel describes as sleeping, rising, waiting and unknowing. This is because plant growth happens in the night: after storing all the Light of the day, the plant grows in silence and darkness. Do you think that it is a coincidence that Nicodemus was taught by night (John 3) about the doctrine of the Second Birth and that the Son of Man must be ‘lifted up’? Or is it a coincidence that afterward Nicodemus brings myrrh and aloes (plant matter) for the burial of Jesus – the planting of the Seed (the Seminal Word), so that it may sprout into Resurrected Life? This is the mystery of Grace of which St. Paul speaks when he says first to work out our salvation with fear and trembling but then reminding us that ‘it is God who works’, not us.

The philosopher then, just as much as the gardener, cannot force things, but rather must receive Grace and grow in silence and darkness. When he is receiving illumination he must be still and humble; and then this light, after penetrating to his inner core, will make him grow – with no effort, no skill, no force. It is pure Grace which groans in travail for the birth of the Seed of all Life which grows into a Tree. Does not Solomon say that ‘the fruit of the righteous is a Tree of Life’ (Proverbs 11:30)? This is no mere metaphor. In the Seed the Father speaks; but it must be wounded, like the Son; so that the Holy Spirit may break forth from the Kernel. A new Tree, a new Triad, is then born: the Roots of the Father, the Trunk of the Son (‘lifted up’), the branches of the Spirit. And under it, the humble handmaiden, a mystery of beauty, warmth and infinity, the Immaculate ground where the roots are set: the hidden fourth of the supernal three. Nature always points to God, just as the Virgin always points to Christ.

If one understands that the Tao and Te, Logos and Grace, that Lao Tzu speaks of are really embodied in Christ and the Virgin, then one can read his words in a whole new light: «No one tells them to honor the Tao (Christ) and its Te (Virgin Mother), it happens all by itself. So the Tao gives them birth, and its Te cultivates them, cares for them, nurtures them, gives them a place of refuge and peace, helps them to grow and shelters them. It gives them life without wanting to posses them, and cares for them expecting nothing in return. It is their master, but it does not seek to dominate them. This is called the dark and mysterious Te» (Tao Te Ching, 51). Therefore, we philosophers and gardeners are always servants of the Virgin – it is She, and not us, who ‘cultivates, cares, nurtures and gives refuge and peace, helps to grow and shelters’. And if one contemplates it in this way, one can see how far we have fallen from the Garden of Paradise, and how we have transformed Gardening into Effort, despoiling the Virgin.

It was this Grace and Humility that was rediscovered in modern times by garden-philosophers, or philosophy-gardeners. Men like Masanobu Fukuoka or Wendell Berry, who discovered that gardening and philosophy are inextricably linked, and that this link is found in Grace. The philosopher and the gardener, in their purest form, do nothing more than plant seeds and wait. Then they can contemplate the beauty of the garden – the seedling bursting through the earth like the beginning of an idea, the growing towards the light to become intelligible, the blooming into beautiful and fragrant flowers, and finally the miracle of fruit – juicy, nourishing, sweet fruit. And within it are the seeds, which begin the process anew. Every sane man enjoys the sight of green growth, the beauty of colorful blooms and the sweetness of ripe fruit. What distinguishes the philosopher is that he is the keeper and lover of the seed. And because all potential is contained in this seed, and it can grow into the tallest of trees without the philosopher adding anything other than his Love and Care, he eventually discovers: that it is not him who cultivates the earth and wisdom, but rather it is the Earth and Wisdom (Mary and Sophia) which cultivate him.