6. If You Believe You Can Fly, You Can (Vision) Even today, 10 years after I started, casual visitor would not likely be impressed with my yard. It is still mostly in my head, you see -- my vision of what it will look like someday. I am visionary and I recommit to my vision every time I work in yard. I look at my creation and I see that it is good.

I think of people who created Palm Desert, people who drove over those barren mountains down into a desert valley and had temerity to think, “If only I could get some water in here.” Or I think of Peter Great, reclaiming St. Petersburg from a swamp. How I appreciate now hard work that must have taken. How convenient for autocratic Russian feudalism to provide thousands of people like me all day every day for many years to do work.

It’s vision which drives person who has vision. No one else will see it but you!

7. To Prevail, You Must Act I have developed my male side out here in yard. I used to hear it said that to prevail you must act. I thought that was for guys. However, in this natural environment, if I don’t clear, Nature marches. There is no stopping this process. If I don’t push back, Nature pushes forward. It’s a jungle out there.

So what I’ve learned is that in order to prevail, one must act. The wonderful thing about enlightenment is holistic knowledge that if I do something in one area of my life, it will also be happening in another.

What I have learned is that it does indeed require action to prevail on environment and I have begun to be far more pro-active in other areas of my life besides yard. I am pro-active with home repairs, meeting county regulations, potential disputes with neighbors, political representation, taxation and other things. I no longer stand still in my life, though I do always stand at center of my life.

8. I Will Have Eternal Life As I work in my yard, I see monkey grass I planted on walkway, without much thought, and crepe myrtle tree which is at very center of my yard, young but doing well. Oddly, crepe myrtles are not very popular out here. In my crepe myrtle tree lives a jaybird. Jaybirds are not very popular anywhere, but I have always loved them. There was a jaybird in my grandmother’s front yard and a whole hedge of crepe myrtle bushes. They were her pride and glory. She also planted monkey grass along walkway.

I look down at my brown arms and bare brown feet, how muscular I have become, working out here under invisible whip of Yard Guru. I know that my grandmother lives through me. I look like her now. I am small, muscular and brown, like her. And like her, I am a little overweight. Right now, I am at age that I remember her best.

I work very hard, like my grandmother. I am spiritual like her. In another area of yard, I have a Viennese bird bath and some Alpine wildflowers. I got them after I returned from Vienna a few years ago. I understood now why my German grandmother and many other people in America created kinds of lives and gardens they did.

Now, at 58, I know why my grandmother did all things she did and I allow her expression to pour through me out into world and to infuse my spirit. Today I will go down to my daughter’s yard and pull weeds. I will tear out some bamboo and weed whack. I want my daughter to see me working in yard so I will live through her someday when she has a yard of her own. Through her and through everyone I have touched and influenced, I will have eternal life.

9.. To All Things There is a Season One thing about living in Southern California (I am not a native), you can really lose track of time. It is not unusual out here to not know what month it is. This is because every month is same. We have what is called a temperate climate, so on average it is 65-70 degrees 365 days a year.

Having grown up in Chicago, I missed rhythm of seasons til I began to work in my yard. Now I am in touch with seasons again, but in a different way.

My year begins with sudden growth of wild grasses in January. In February come snails. In March gophers. In April field mice. In May there are big fat harmless bees outside front door. In June, grass goes dormant and looks horrible for rest of year. In July, there is a smell in air I think from stems of red geraniums drying up and as a result, sometimes I get allergies. Also at this time crepe myrtle blooms. In August we begin to worry about water and second round of notices from fire prevention people come out. In September water is rationed and some things die. October brings a certain slant to sun and relief to remaining plants and flowers. In November my fall shrubs bloom if they are going to. I rest in December because in January there will be a sudden growth of wild grasses and I will need to get mower out again.

To all things there is a season. When I walk around my yard I wonder if I will live to see jacaranda tree really take off or shimmering alder reach full height. I also wonder about Mother-in-Law tree in front yard. And I wonder if I will ever have any grandchildren. I am very much at peace. I know that for my life, too, there will be a season.

10. What Goes Around Comes Around Sanctuary In my yard there are three statues. Well, nowadays they would be called “yard art”. I have a face of Buddha, Tibetan kind, that is very big and very serene. It sits by a Baja California cactus that makes it look very small. Then there is an angel under my lemon tree and in a grove on other side under a huge pepper tree is Mother Mary.

I created these sacred areas and also turned my living room into a Great Hall when I returned from Benedictine Monastery in Santa Barbara. I was restored there and refreshed and I brought that feeling back with me into my yard.

It is intent of Benedictine monks to provide a place of refuge, a sanctuary, and as I look around my yard, I see how much my stay there had meant to me. I am reminded that very small things in life can make a very big difference. When someone feels at peace in my yard, I remember peace I felt at Monastery.