August 2026 – Jane Tawel

The Gore and Glory of Gardens

The Gore and Glory of Gardens

By Jane Tawel

August 27, 2026

How glorious to get gory in the garden.

The scratch of thorns on forearms,

the blisters from the dig with gloveless trowels,

the sweat in pits and crevices of this

amazing bucket of blood and water

that Nature has formed around my soul

to care for my small patch of Mother Earth.

I felt once young and clean again today,

to shape the world with loving shears and mulch.

To mix my blood with Wood and Fruit —

the trellises like crosses,

and vines with open mouths and wounds,

accepting my small part in their salvation.

We small shoots in the ever-growing Universe,

have so much love to give,

have so much love to receive.

To be afraid of change and growth,

is to experience, once more,

our Banishment from The Garden.

I look at the dandelions,

determined to take their place among the flowers of the world,

And I say to them,

“We are not so different, You and I”.

Today, I told the lilies of my field

that though the heating Sun

would kill them now,

their regal raiment was secure;

for beauty never really dies.

And as I brutally cut away

the dead and dying parts

of branch and leaf and husk,

I sang a song of blessing

on the roots and shoots and buds.

I told the bees who looked at me askance,

“A garden must suffer to thrive,

A garden must die to live,

A garden will give and give and give

And you, dear bees and I, must care for Her

with all the skills and love together we can bring”.

A Garden is a glorious, gory thing.

How wonder-full to walk in The Garden,

Returned to The Presence,

at One with small, real, lovely things.

A cosmos contained in a back yard,

shedding blood and sap and dew,

continually dying cells

and resurrecting Life.

We are meant to be

at One,

as Kin,

at Home,

returned to Eden,

in small patches of soil.

Not From, Not To, But Are

Not From, Not To, But Are

By Jane Tawel

It is not where you are from

Nor where you are going

Not from, not to,

But are.

How very silly we have been

to stand on what is behind us

(that belonged to someone else).

Or to look toward what we imagine is before us

(tomorrow never comes for it is always now)

What a tragi-comedy we live

To bank on what is on the bank

To live clinging to the shore

And to miss what is right here

right Now

and which is always without effort

moving, floating, streaming –

Oh! — the Current can not be

dammed with words.

We were made to feel

the Flow

Water and blood flow

We see water flow

We can feel it flow through our hands

Impossible to grasp.

We sense blood flow

Through veins, heart pumping

Surging life through bodies made

of dancing molecules.

In life, water and blood flow separately

But in Death, water and blood flow out together.

In death, we know they are one

as we are One.

When life flows out of this cask of blood and bones,

of sensibility and sinew,

of dermis and dreams,

the container will no longer be needed.

And we will join the Great Flow

Flowing out and on

“Deep and wide

Deep and wide

There’s a Fountain flowing deep and wide”**.

“Don’t wait”! cry the angels,

“Join the Great Flow now!”

Letting go

Releasing

No judgement

No fear

You are already in and of.

There is no need to know

There is only experiencing.

One joins the Stream

And then knows without knowing

That the Water flowing

is also the swirl of Light.

** These words are from an old children’s Sunday School song called “Deep and Wide”. We knew more as children, it seems.

Time for Change

(This is from a FB comment I shared on a post of mine in response to other comments. I thought it might also be worth posting here.)

Thanks for conversation on this and kind words at end — back at ya’.

There are many, many people you can read who can say much, much better what I will try to say here in this strange little forum some of us inhabit on FB. To read about the ultimately destructive and inhuman and unsustainable consequences of the ubercapitalist nation we have created in America, you can find far better thinkers than I. There are literary giants such as Orwell and Steinbeck; politicians from the past such as Abraham Lincoln or FDR; journalists and essayists through the ages too numerous to mention; and of course spiritual giants, such as Jesus, just to name The Big Guy.

What we are seeing in America today is actually the end game of the system we have long called many things other than what it is. The people who have always benefited from this system have now benefitted to such an extent that their oligarchy is unassailable from within the system itself. And so they use other means — such as what communism actually is doing in this nation — our current government is taking public funds and private properties away from the citizens and giving it to either the nation under the guise of Republicanism or giving it to the olligarchy of billionaires that are actually running this country. The way they best do this without our catching on is to make people afraid — fearmongering is the best trick up the sleeve of authoritarians and the men who want to be gods because it keeps people in the smoke and mirror world of creating the “enemy” that they need to fight against — rather than the reality that what we need is to change the very broken system — broken for us, not the greedy narcissists at the top.

What these oligarchs and authoritarians don’t realize is that eventually the system will break down for them as well — they are committing national murder but it is really ultimately suicide. Take the current example you present in their sleight of hand magic show. Mom and Pop stores do not need to fear a change in the system, they need to fight against the current system that has destroyed small businesses across this nation in the same way it has destroyed privately owned farms, and our roads and toll systems, and now our public lands and national parks — that is the boogey man and he is not hiding in the closets of so called “communists”, he is in the halls of power of our current government and billionaires.

So yes — I applaud any one who asks — is it so wrong to entertain the possibility — the hope — that we can change this 250 year old system? Because we have been a part of this system since we killed the people who lived here for their land or enslaved Black people to enrich white people. Today we are simply seeing the tragic results of no longer having any safe guards around the slippery slope. I am all for tryiing something new because this current American system is not only self-destructing at the speed of light but destroying our planet and taking the name of God and the message of Christ to a level of lies and lows that would grieve the most contrite sinner such as I.

Would I rather see my “hard earned cash” go to my struggling neighbors than to the people making themselves rich off of my tax dollars? Yep. Do I see other nations with different named philosophies of true democracy not unchecked capitalism, in the world doing a much better “job” of caring for their citizens, keeping the world safe, and saving the planet — yes, absolutely. Do I want to believe the people in charge who don’t even pretend to hide their lies or greed or hatred? No, I will not believe them and I will not believe there are that many people in America who do want to continue to believe this destructive hogwash.

I have to believe that the soul of America is worth saving because the souls of the little people of every color, religion, job-description, and gender are worth more than any one billionaire or God help us, trillionaire. And if we need some radical changes to save the beautiful things this nation has always aimed for — bring it on.

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