Heaven Is Under Our Feet

"Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads." - Henry David Thoreau


Welcome to my private garden. :-)

Well, it's not actually mine, but it sometimes feels that way in the morning when I visit, when almost nobody is there. It may be the best kind of garden: the kind you can just visit and admire, and don't have to do any of the work.

Welcome to the Arboretum at Penn State, also known as the H.O. Smith Botanic Gardens. I have shown you quite a few scenes from other parts of the gardens, especially its lily pond. Let me share the news from this morning in early July.

In the pollinator gardens, fat, slumbering bumblebees are waking up on pink echinacea.

The spray from the soaker hoses has left sparkling diamond dewdrops on every petal of every daisy along the path.

In the lily pond, a bright pink water lily that wasn't there yesterday is opening its orange heart to the sun.

A tiny neon-blue dragonfly is coveting the new pink bloom.

In the flowers in front of me, a small rabbit with twitching ears thinks it is well hid.

Above my head, the sky is clear and blue and cloudless.

High in the branches of the tree beside me, a bird is singing a raucous hallelujah to the day.

I carry this place with me; I carry it in my heart: my own secret garden.


P.S. Here's a YouTube link to a song I love, The Eagles' wonderful "Learn to be Still." Did you know that Don Henley is a big Thoreau fan, and one of the leaders in the effort to preserve Walden Woods? One of the song lyrics references the Thoreau quote provided above; that may be why I like it so much: "Maybe you've forgotten . . . the heaven lying at your feet." Listen to it here.