the secret garden….

In today’s world, not too many natural things are able to remain hidden…we are constructing ourselves out of nature right and left with our building endeavors in the name of progress. Why should we be surprised when wild animals roam suburban neighborhoods, confused as to what happened to their homes.

We live in a neighborhood of closely spaced homes.   However, thank goodness, it is filled with trees and is surrounded by woods giving it a rather pastoral feel so close to the city of Athens.  I love that!!   Aside from moving one street over, we’ve lived here for 16 years. 

We have paths and trails carved into the woods and advertised as an amenity to our neighborhood. They are kind of like those magic eye photographs in that you have to really look for for the trail head, especially if the grass has not been cut…but once you see it….it is clearly visible and it will thereafter come into focus with little effort. I am sad to say that we had lived here about 9 years before I even discovered them. Time lost! Ever after, I have delighted in my walks through the woods, mostly in the fall and winter when the snakes might be hibernating. (Side bar: I am a confirmed ophidiophobe !! EEK! ) However, the tree air and palettes of green always offer up their wonderful medicinal doses of peace and calm. There are streams to add some subtle background music to the rustle of the leaves, and a few ponds are scattered about with homes to turtles, fish, and even a beaver. It positively erupted my childlike instinct to explore and the desire to build a fort or climb a tree. I would have lived in these woods in my youth. If we could see the world through the eyes of a child, we would see the magic in everything.  Yes, please.  Tree Stars every.where!!!

Well, I am happy to report that, thanks to a sweet neighbor, we discovered a secret garden the other day….a truly hidden treasure. “The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” ~ Yeats. I had walked a particular path a multitude of times but always in the cooler months before the blooms of spring. It was a trail that led next to a still water pond with lots of trees that had fallen in to give it an unusually beautiful silhouette. But it had something magical waiting in dormancy. This day I felt as if I’d suddenly stumbled into a fairy-tale forest! That pond is now surrounded by tall yellow Iris’s and white wildflowers….there are thousands of them…and they are scattered through the woods as well. It is as if they have been purposely planted there….and yet, they are in the midst of a jumble of woods hidden totally from the outside world. It is an absolutely spellbinding sight. I tried to take a picture but the majesty can not be captured. Dappled sunlight peeps through the canopy of trees giving it a further enchanted feel within this woodland idyll.  If I believed in such things, it would not be much of a leap to see faeries and other mythical creatures flitting and sprinkling their pixie dust all about. I was totally oblivious to such beauty literally a stone’s throw from our house!  Who knew!? Nature is a garden of secrets well worth the effort to look for them.

That begs the question….what other treasures are hiding? What else is God waiting for us to find? E.B. White reminds us to always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder!  Others may lie a stone’s throw from our doorstep as well. We live in a world that is a veritable collage of Tree Stars! If more of us were on the lookout for our childlike wonder, less of us would be using our adult selves for contentious endeavors.

 “the whole earth is full of his glory.” ~ Isaiah 6:3