Cultiver - A Modern Hanging Art Mobile for the Garden by Mark Leary Designs

Mobile: Cultiver (48” x 34”)

On your garden

“Amend your soil,” said fox, “and watch the flowers grow.”

Thoughts while making
He doesn’t look at all like you might imagine. A high forehead, a long nose, pasty white skin, and *that* hair … I might’ve gone a different way, but if a whitish-gray powdered wig with curls for days is his thing, more power to him.

His name is François-Marie, but he prefers to go by Voltaire. Odd but who am I to judge, right? I asked him over for coffee this morning because I was chewing on a passage he’d written in back in 1759.

I wanted to know more about Candide, the poor chap in his story by the same name, who endures one seemingly devastating catastrophe after another (death, disease, famine, banishment, and more), but who plugs along doing the best he can with what he has; recognizing that while he can’t control the circumstances, he can his response *and* his actions.

Candide epitomizes the Jack Canfield equation: Events + Reaction = Outcome. But there’s something more, and that’s what I wanted to chat with my buddy Voltaire about.

Because if all we do is respond to circumstance and event in the moment, where are we left? Are we really in control? Who or what is guiding our path?

Candide, of course, has the answer. He realized that a life of true passion + purpose, while necessarily pressed and pressured by the outside world here and there, is made manifest when we abide in his imperative, “let us cultivate our garden."

We cannot control circumstance. Only our reaction to it. We can (and perhaps should) take pause for these are extraordinary times. But then, to remember our own way, who we are, who we want to be, how we want to be, and why.

Because the earth continues to revolve round the sun. The seasons continue to change. The soil will need tilling. Seeds planting. And, unless we are willing to let our fields lay fallow, our gardens cultivating.

Gardens grow food. Food sustains. Sustenance is life. Life a gift to share, a treasure to receive. Working together, we amend our soil, we amend our souls. The cycle repeats.

What can you throw into the compost pile today to better cultivate your garden or that of another?