Now the garden is dense with plants. I'm choosing and picking and plucking out weeds, herbs and so forth. I transplant the ones I know have something good for me, sometimes I tolerate a weed that simply looks nice. I noticed that some of the nice looking young weeds turn into gangly, awkward looking things that have hooks or needles or foul smelling blooms. Some plants like valerian have terrible smelling roots but beautiful flowers that fill the air around them with perfume. The roots are what kill the pain and since they can come up from root parts if you are careful when you harvest them you can propagate while harvesting.

I was thinking about God as gardener. The first book of the Old Testament deals with God as Gardener. The two first sons of Adam and Eve were hunter and gardener. Given the choice of sacrificial fruit or sacrificial animal, guess which one Trickster took? Curious how many times old Trickster took the opportunity to drink blood. But as a gardener Yahweh is interesting. He tills under whole cities to clear room for his Chosen Ones. He burns, plagues, and floods, and when that doesn't work he sends in the troops. Always choosing the slain, choosing the ones who will grow and worship Him. He feeds on worship the way I feed on radishes.

Sometimes you take a nice young tree, like Lot. You cut off some branches, bend the ones you left and end up with a pretty shaped tree against the wall. And during the whole process Lot insists he doesn't mind. Doesn't mind losing his wife and kids, doesn't mind being given others. As long as the roots are not cut in the garden everything will grow and prosper. Fat chance.

When it rains and when the sun shines the garden grows like crazy, as if growing were the one thing you think about. Putting out shoots, putting out seeds, making new versions of yourself. Some plants grab at God as He walks thru the garden, reminding Him of promises, of encroaching weeds....those of other faiths. The Motherwort bush is a fine weed with pretty white flowers and dainty leaves. It's value for women is known throughout...hence the name. Lactating women find it valuable to maintain the flow of sustenance to their young ones. Yet the gardeners pull it out and throw it away, preferring useless grass in vast expanses. Flat featureless planes of green is the choice of so many. All the same mindset, all the same patterns. God on His John Deere making sure nobody gets ahead of anybody else.

Trickster put on his Son mask and went down into the Garden. He pretended to die, to heal, to forgive. Then when the play was over and all the plants were waving in happy unison, he left. The plants grew willy nilly and everywhere, spreading the word, spreading the roots. Then He came and weeded and chopped....the Crusades, the Red Plague, the Vatican....WW1 (war to end war) or (end to end war) I always forget which is which.

Nixon was born again, always praying. The two Bushes from which we receive the Holy Word are both born again. Both weeding and plucking, weeding and plowing under all those who do not like green lawns and John Deere tractors. I think maybe they need to be born a couple more times, just to be sure. Maybe as a Pagan following the Goddess Way, maybe as Jains with bell-hung sticks to warn off the bugs and mice. See Jain run, see Jain run for President. See Dick fall to his knees praying for the Viet Nam War to go away. See Spot, see Spot run, see Spot run not blot. Running like a dog let loose, like Cerebus barking and guarding the garden, running off those who will not mow.

It's June, time of the Solstice, bonfires burning in the night to welcome the middle of summer, the waning of the daylight. The door is opening to winter, but in the meantime I am out in the garden, sowing, not mowing. Planting, not stamping. My battle against the weeds is more of a forced relocation than a pogrom or an ethnic cleansing. She watches me move around, my Mother of the Weeds. She gives me rain when I need it, rain when the plants need it. When me aches from bending and shoveling She gives me valerian with it's pretty pink flowers and soft smells of summer. I sigh and close my eyes and send the sights and smells thru some cosmic connection to my son in his bed, to my friends around the world. I hope the smell of the garden will drown out the smells of the gunpowder and blood which wafts around the ruins of the First Garden, the one Adam and Eve were thrown out of.