Inspiration

It’s late in the day and I walk the land before dinner to see what Donn has worked on this afternoon. He has the gift of vision….I have used the tractor to brush hog (where did THAT word come from???) between the plantation trees on the ten acres. Some were so entangled with the thick, invasive Himalayan Blackberry vines that they were nearly pulled down to the ground in the process of freeing them. Some things DO need to just go…. As I work, for hours every day in the hot sun smelling diesel fumes and making myself cough, I think, “I am freeing these little ones to be what they were meant to be…lovely, nurturing, life giving...”

As I walk tonight, I am thinking of “inspiration”. What serves to drive me and Donn onward in our push to create a garden of loveliness here at Adytum and on her lands? I remember the first time we walked the land. Donn’s father was dying of Parkinson’s and diabetes in the nursing home. He called as we finally got through the brush and out onto the blessedly clear road. He was coughing so hard we could hardly make out his words. But he was with us in our first experiencing of the land we would come to love. I wore jeans. Donn wore shorts. His legs were bloody from being torn by brambles and the persistent blackberry vines. In some ways, I wish that phone call wasn’t joined with our first walk through of the land we’d bought adjacent to the house site; fifteen acres in all- ten in forest land, a tree plantation and five in a housing site. But it was, and maybe it foretold the inheritance that would soon come and help us in the completion of our blessed Adytum home….Eugene was part of it all even though his body was all but frozen with his illness in his bed in Payette, Idaho.

But back to inspiration….what drives us to press forward in hard, grueling, sweaty work when most would just opt for a city lot and manicured lawn? We came here to simplify our lives. What a joke! I never drove or owned a tractor before now. Not that I was ever anything more than a glorified tomboy…but still, a tractor??? It reminds me of a giant dinosaur with a big tail; all parts moving independently of one another….in other words, I have learned to watch the bucket end AND the implement end, which is most often, the infamous brush hog. Little, innocent trees that I am working to free have been mutilated and/or slaughtered when my mind drifts even for a moment.

We have been inspired by the English garden show that is the counter part of Treasures of the Trust- another favorite of ours that goes through old castles too big to be maintained so they are donated to the Trust. (wonder how the heirs feel about that one…) This show I am talking about is called Gardens of the Trust. Anyway, it completely inspires us …seriously, they didn’t have tractors back then. Just brawny men – lots of them -who could dig a ditch, a pond, clear land…all with physical labor. So why do I whine that we haven’t simplified our lives at all when I have the marvelous servant of a TRACTOR….? The beauty they created is still speaking, centuries later.

This show makes me realize that the gift of the dead from other centuries is often in the form of inspiration. If they could achieve order out of an unruly English landscape in centuries prior without heavy machinery, is it too hard for us? I have quite taken it on as my project. Donn works with often unruly elderly patients, complaining of their vision when they eat poorly and don’t want to spend money on new glasses….the least I can do is create beauty and orderliness when he’s away…

My friend emails me, the one that is an RN and has gone for her Physician’s Assistant….at 62! I had shared pics with her via email from my recent cruise with my newly inaugurated RN daughter…at 22 no less. Margie is impressed with the way my 48 year old bod looks in a bikini and decides it motivates her enough to go run 2 miles! I laugh and write back that I am impressed even more with her achievement getting her PA…all that school WHILE working as an RN! Talk about an inspiring achievement….I think to myself, “I could never do that….what a special lady….” In a word, SHE is an inspiration.

As I walk back under tall trees in blessed shade on a hot July day on our land, I think of the ways we inspire each other during our time on this Earth…such a fleeting time. I think of the verse that says: Iron sharpens iron. We rub shoulders to infect each other with enthusiasm. We email to inspire others to achieve. We write to stir up desire and vision….We talk to goad dreams into action. We need each other, don’t we? As much as I love being alone in nature, I see how the Creator set up this game called Life. What a good idea. Works for me….for all of us to become “bigger” than we would otherwise.

I could site multitudes of examples of people, some even dead as in the Gardens of the Trust series that continue to inspire me. But the thought has “taken” on my walk home through beautiful woodlands.

Our often unspoken gift to each other is the way we live our lives. The way we inspire each other because we go after our dreams with boldness and zest. We are gifts to each other just because “we are”. Same way the verse reads, “Be still and know that I AM” – which, by the way, is the ultimate in inspiring minds….the One who set it all up, created all the beauty and the game plan….and we are connected to ALL THAT! Amazing…Inspirational even.