What gardening taught me about life tobacco brown
At age four, I found a garden,
living underneath the kitchen floor.
It was hiding behind
leftover patches of linoleum
on the worn-out floor
my mother was having removed.
The workman was busy
when the garden caught my attention.
My eyes became glued to the patterns
of embroidered roses
blooming across my childhood landscape.
I saw them and felt
a sense of joy and adventure.
This excitement felt like
a feeling to go forward
into something I knew nothing about.
My passion and connection to garden
started at that exact moment.
When spring arrived,
I ran so fast through the house,
speeding ahead of my mother’s voice.
I pulled on my red corduroy jumper
and my grey plaid wool hat
before my mother could get her jacket on.
I catapulted out of the front screen door
and threw myself
on a fresh carpet of grass.
Excited, I bounced to my feet
and flipped three more cartwheels
before landing by her side.
Mother dear was in the garden
busy breaking up the soil,
and I sat beside her,
playing with mud pies in the flower bed.
When her work was done,
she rewarded me with an ice-cold glass
of bittersweet lemonade
and then lined my shoes
with sprigs of mint
to cool off my feet.
My mother cooked with the colors
and textures of her garden.
She baked yams and squash
and heirloom tomatoes and carrots.
She fed love to a generation of people
with purple hull peas and greens.
It seems that during my childhood,
the blooms from my mother’s gardens
have healed all the way from her halo
to the roots on the soles of our feet.
In our last conversation before her death,
she encouraged me to go
anywhere in the world
that would make me happy.
Since then, I have planted her gardens
through art installations
throughout the world,
in countries of the people that I meet.
Now they are lining
parks and courtyards,
painted on walls and even
in blighted lots off the street.
If you were in Berlin, Germany,
you would have seen my garden
at Stilwerk Design Center,
where rosemary and lavender,
hydrangea and lemon balm
trailed up the glass elevators
to all six floors.
In 2009, I planted “Philosophers Garden,”
a garden mural,
blooming at the historic
Frederick Douglass High School
in Memphis, Tennessee.
This school’s garden
fed an entire community
and was honored by Eleanor Roosevelt
during the Great Depression.
Again, in 2011, I planted
at Court Square Park –
six entry gardens
with 80 varieties
of deliciously fragrant floribunda
and hybrid tea roses.
Gardening has taught me
that planting and growing a garden
is the same process as creating our lives.
This process of creation
begins in the spring,
when you break up the soil and start anew.
Then it’s time to clear out
the dead leaves,
debris and roots of the winter.
The gardener must then make sure
that a good disposition
and the proper nutrients
are correctly mixed in the soil.
Then it’s important to aerate the topsoil
and leave it loosely packed
on the surface.
You won’t get those
beautiful blooms in life
until you first do the work just right.
When our gardens are balanced with care,
we can harvest the beauty
of living a life of grace.
In the forests,
when trees realize through their roots
that another tree is sick,
they will send a portion
of their nutrients to that tree
to help them to heal.
They never think
about what will happen to them
or feel vulnerable when they do.
When a tree is dying,
it releases all of its nutrients
to other trees that need it the most.
Below the surface,
we are all connected by our roots
and sharing nutrients with each other.
It’s only when we come together
that we can honestly grow.
It’s the same for humans
in the garden of hardship.
In this garden,
when the caterpillar transforms
into a chrysalis,
this involves some struggle.
But it’s a challenge with a purpose.
Without this painful fight
to break free from
the confines of the cocoon,
the newly formed butterfly
can’t strengthen its wings.
Without the battle, the butterfly dies
without ever taking flight.
My life’s work
is to illustrate how to integrate
human connectivity into the garden.
Gardens are full of magical wisdom
for this transformation.
Mother Nature is creative energy
waiting to be born.
Gardens are a mirror
that cast their own reflection
into our waking lives.
So nurture your talents and strengths
while you appreciate
all you’ve been given.
Remain humble to healing.
And maintain compassion for others.
Cultivate your garden for giving
and plant those seeds for the future.
The garden is the world
living deep inside of you.
Thank you.
(Applause)
(Cheers)
(Applause)