Today’s musings are based on the book, Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius. He was a 2nd century Roman Emperor and philosopher. I’ve posted on my readings from this book before (here, here, and here), but it has been quite a while.
I’ve picked the book back up and am starting from the beginning again. Every time I read this book, it seems as if something new catches my thoughts and won’t let go. It’s so full of insight. This book seems to be his own journal, a place where he wrote down his thoughts and used as a guide for his life. Wikipedia has a good article on Meditations.
Today, this excerpt is what I am reading and thinking of from Book 6 of Meditations (paragraph 38):
“Keep reminding yourself of the way things are connected, of their relatedness. All things are implicated in one another and in sympathy with each other. This event is the consequence of some other one. Things push and pull on each other, and breathe together, and are one.”
Can you see the dozens of tadpoles in the water?
Maybe one of them grew up to become this!
Nowhere is this more true than in the garden and in nature in general. Think of the animals that depend on plants and insects. Or the way a pond is connected to all the little beings that live in it. Or the trees that drop their leaves, which then become perfect food for the soil, that provides the perfect environment for earthworms and plants, which then become food for animals, and so on.
Catalpa worm- aren’t his little legs the cutest things ever?
The catalpa worm above has come to feast on one of our trees. They do not come every year but for the past few years they were here, completing defoliating our several catalpa trees. But this past year, their natural predator (parasitic wasps) must have finally gotten word and arrived, because the worms were gone before they did much damage. This is nature at its finest (not if you are the catalpa worm, however). A great example of letting natural processes take place, rather than resorting to pesticides, if at all possible.
Just a little reflection to help me keep things in perspective. Hope your Thursday is going well. What are you thinking about today?
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