"Look at the world out there, my God, my God, look at it out there, outside me, out there beyond my face and the only way to really touch it is to put it where it is finally me, where it's in the blood, where it pumps around a thousand times ten thousand a day. I get a hold of it so it'll never run off."
(Fahrenhiet 451, 162).

It is a connection we all pursue. Wherever we live and work, we most probably live and work on the edge. Close to trouble, we sometimes lose balance and control over our own little worlds and we fall. We fall until we find that connection, that piece of the world that puts passion in our eyes and motion in our legs. And then we fall some more. We seek the courage to relax our defenses and sit in our personal garden of passion and love. The dirt moves from the ground around us and soaks in through our nose and eyes until we feel it moving our arms and legs begging for more action, begging for a little more room to grow. That desire to find our center is what drives us to the lengths of our garden. Keep that centered feeling with you. Know that you must save the garden for it to save you. I think we can all agree it is not the way that you fall that matters but the way you land. Remember to land in your garden.

A few days ago, here in Northern California, the temperature reached the high nineties and maybe pushed through the triple digits. It was so hot, in fact, that I could not bare to sit in the sun past noon because it was burning the energy right out off my body. Then I got to thinking about the power of sun and how we, as well as millions of other life forms harness the sun for energy. Whether ruminants eating the mini photovoltaic cells that are grass or the tomato ripening thanks to the process of converting sunlight into energy to grow, that bright and amazingly hot ball in the sky can either literally burn us to death or warm and sustain us. And then I realized its potential had more to do with our intentions for its heat than the heat itself.

A few days ago I made a choice to see the sun as a warming hand (perhaps the benevolent invisible hand) guiding the food system and biosphere I was tending rather than a blazing fire pistol burning away my chance at working the land. I wanted to work with the sun rather than against it to save my little piece of the garden. I reminded myself while walking in from the larger of the two gardens that nature and this enormously complex natural energy system was simply tending the land as I hoped to. So, I stepped back, bowed to the man waiting at the door and walked in out of the heat. I was saving myself and the land some badly needed time to reflect on the past day and strategize a way to save more garden space. I thought all this before stepping into a cool outdoor shower to wash the dirt from my hands and face, but not before it had its chance to make a garden out of my body.