Weekends come and go and we haven’t done anything. Haven’t taken the kayaks out, or dusted the cobwebs off the mountain bikes to hit the trails. It begins to feel like all we do is work at the office, and then come home to work at Adytum, our supposed “Sanctuary”.
“Would you like to go kayaking now”, Donn asks after we both cap off a new walkway with a Moon Gate metal arch and flagstone pathway cutting through what will soon be lawn. Ryan, the eldest Carroll son, created the idea in me to connect a new path he cut through a dense group of young crooked willow trees with the Moon Gate arch and stepping stones.
Ryan’s imagination and fresh thinking made a natural path where it was most needed and now it is a silent invitation off the courtyard patio to the Koi and bog ponds below. Since the lake is the obvious draw, this move on his part creates a sense of suspense and mystery despite the enormous competition of the incredible view…. To top it off, visible through the arch of the moon gate is a stone bench in the distance that beckons one to another viewpoint through the woods.Creating this drama is everything I’ve learned watching every single episode of Gardens of the Trust, and he knew it instinctively…
Just as iron sharpens iron, creativity and fresh thinking in one sparks it in another. Years from now, we will all remember how this came about where there was once just forest and brush. There is a latent power in our creative acts, but they must be brought to the surface and not simply remain as ideas…
Answering Donn, “No actually this was good. It was just what I wanted to do today even though I know I said we need to have fun… now I’m ready to relax – inside.” Our old definitions of weekends, of activities we do on weekends to make them feel like we had one, are changing.
I watch Donn, at 61, creating beauty inside of form and function. It reminds me of seeing the concrete stairs he laid at 18 through his mother’s sloping lawn. His work still stands even though the house has now been sold. For me to have seen his youthful work was a blessing. When Ryan reflects in his 90’s that his pathway was made by hand, hewing a space for a flight of fiddlewood maple steps out of rocky earth, he will feel the same sense of delight that his creative acts live on.
I am redefining what weekends mean now, in my late 40’s. I need to create beauty and order in our Sanctuary more than I need to discover a new hiking trail or bounce over old roots on forest single track on my bike. It’s not that I’ve lost interest in those things, but fleshing out Adytum’s secret places and desires to “become” are far more compelling now than how I used to spend weekend hours.
When we get tired of it all, someone will come to spur us on and remind us why we are creating from a live palette. We are sculptors and painters from nature, working in our studio on this sacred hill surrounded by water music, birdsong and woodland beauty so intense we lose ourselves in it. The lake sparkles and we catch occasional sounds of revelers on their jet skis or water skiers. But we desire to leave the car in the garage, to work awhile, to sit under Adytum’s signature orange umbrella on the deck and simply watch. Then, refreshed, we are back to creating; sculpting with shovels and painting with a gloved hand in the soil.
In the space of a month, we have sod, courtesy again of Ryan. We have planted half a dozen Japanese maples of intriguing varieties, not the run of the mill nursery stock. We have witnessed the completion of recaulking the house, which necessitated repainting it. We have the concrete finally 100% done, including what I will always refer to as “The Courtyard of God” because it was He who gave the design at the 11th hour with the concrete truck on the way. I’ll never forget the contractor, Mark, taking a step back, chin in hand pondering the suggestion proposed to create symmetry by matching the seated planter box on one side of the French door patio with another instead of just laying the typical little pad at the door as he planned. I distinctly recall excusing myself for a minute “to feed the birds” because something just didn’t feel right about his plan. I’m no architect but I listen to my gut. “God”, I asked quietly as I walked to the feeder, “what do You want there? Oh, and God, we’re out of money….” Instantly, He flashes the answer in my mind in the form of the picture that we now know as our Courtyard of God.
Mark loved the idea and, in a strange act that I felt was not often performed, he said, “I’m just going to throw it in because you’ve done so much with me…” Inside, I am beaming at these words. Not only God’s design, but fully paid for by some heavenly account. I quietly pray for Mark to be blessed…
God has created much of the house because we involved Him, asked Him continually and deferred when His choice was different than ours. I have many stories of His decorating prowess, but for today as children in His household, I realize how much like our Father we are. He didn’t stop creating on the 7th day. He is creating now, through those that “have an ear” and in those that allow themselves to be shaped by His potter’s hand He creates growth and potential. Can you imagine how it feels to inhabit a sacred space that He has had so much involvement in?
If you read the Old Testament at all, you will see how precise He has proven Himself in the past in creating temples and sanctuaries. He is detailed to minutiae and will put any good designer to instant shame; not because that’s his desire, but because He’s just so incredibly spot on. He has the eye. He has the touch. And since we are His blood, so do we! It feeds our spirits to create. It is when I feel my happiest...
So weekends that used to be defined by relaxation away from home are now giving way to relaxation being delivered at home through creating beauty. Hard work? Yes. Exhausting and grimy? Oh yes. But somehow, our spirits are fed every bit as well as if we were deep in the forest discovering waterfalls and reveling in nature’s purity and innocence.
Maybe it’s because we never really took ownership of Adytum. We know we are but stewards and caretakers, much like the Native Americans, even though our name is on the deed, the garden is God’s. We nurture her and encourage her into coming into her own now, and she will nurture us in turn later in her maturity.
In my own maturity, I am learning that things change. Definitions change. Ideas change. Just as Ryan cut a fresh path in an area I would never have considered cutting one, I must cut new paths into old habit patterns and ways of being. Just because weekends in the first decade of our marriage involved “away” doesn’t mean that, halfway through our second decade it has to mean the same thing.
My friend, Jerry, would call that being a “realist”. “If the winds change,” he says, “adjust your sails!” In other words, stop fighting life. It might surprise us to know that when we do, the greatest satisfaction comes rushing in just in an unexpected form.
We are discovering how very much we need to create. Monet had his canvas. Hart, his sculptor’s tools and studio and chunk of bronze. Other’s had the makings of famous cathedrals which stand today as a testament to man’s creative genius. Donn, I and others serve here at Adytum creating a Spiritual Retreat out of virgin forest land where arrow heads of obsidian still allow themselves to be unearthed from time to time. Working the land into garden rooms, ponds, walks and vista spots revitalizes us. How she does it, we don’t have a clue. Give to the land and she gives back to us fulfilling us like a weekend in the sun at a far off locale.
God is here. He’s been invited and His angels. This land is truly our bit of heaven on planet earth. We’re all in it together, making a garden and a place of peace. Even the animals feel it. “Donn, do you know I have a squirrel that likes me to water him? And some hummingbirds who call all their friends to play in the spray when they see me out watering the garden?” He laughs. Some call it Snow White’s garden where fawns come in close to nibble on the new grapevines…Well, there’s always next season for grapes...
For this season, before we put the land to a long winter’s rest, I am going to appreciate the refreshment these weekends spent working the land and sculpting her into a landscape worthy of a fine Monet. I am appreciating all the souls who have come to give labor here, and know they left with full heart and a mysterious spring in their spirit despite bodily fatigue. There is a hierarchy in the complex of body, mind and spirit. I think I am discovering the care and feeding of the spirit in these weekends at home.
