There is a wonderful story in The New York Times, Sunday, June 11 about Marc Hamer.

It’s called “Why You Can’t Really Be a Gardener Without Mindfulness.” I greatly recommend reading it.

It begins (written by Margaret Roach):

“Marc Hamer was “the gardener,” someone who — for a portion of each day, over a career’s worth of years — knelt for hire, often pulling weeds.

“He knew that his employers in the big house, wine glasses in hand, would look out and see him in his posture of humility and perhaps say, “The gardener is here,” as if he were nameless and this was his only purpose on earth. But no matter.

““It just felt silly to concern myself with the social thing, because I was out there in this beautiful relationship with these other living things that were just like me,” the English-born Mr. Hamer said the other day, speaking from his longtime home in Cardiff, Wales. “It felt like prayer; it felt like I was actually humbling myself, bowing to the universe.””

And I almost cried when I read the last few paragraphs:

““As a younger person, there always seems an urgency, a rush to get on and do the next thing, because you have this ladder to climb, or this journey to do,” he said. “I know what the journey is now; I’ve done all that. And I know what the journey is for me ahead. And because I’ve done all those other things, to me, that feels very liberating. And I’m not afraid.”

“If anything, there is a lightening.

““I feel like I can go back and pull out all the things that I’ve enjoyed in my life, and look at them again,” he said. “I dance with my wife.”

“He added: “When I was young, when I was working hard, I was too tired to dance. I never danced. I was exhausted. Now, I dance.””

I am still gardening and there are nights when my back and legs are sore. But when I wake and spend time looking at my garden I am filled with awe watching the tomatoes, the basil, parsley, thyme, lettuce, eggplants, peppers and wildflowers grow. And I give thanks.

The last photo are some cut flowers from my garden in a Mason Jar Vase. My wife, Susan, just loves these bouquets artfully but not too seriously place in Mason Jars!

Marc Hamer can also be found on Instagram.