Discuss: Don Berto’s Garden

Thanks for Don Berto’s Garden.

I find it irresistible not to at least take a moment to wonder aloud what Galileo is doing tonight. My hope would be that he rests in peace and that his head is NOT spinning in his grave. How, now, can Galileo possibly find peace when top-rank scientists refuse to speak out clearly regarding whatsoever they believe to be true about the distinctly human predicament presented to humanity in our time by certain unbridled activities of the human species that are threatening to engulf Don Berto’s Garden and the remainder of the planetary home God has blessed us to inhabit?

It seems to me that human beings cannnot be either rogue organisms or some sort of cancer on Earth’s body, unless we fail to make adequate use of our intelligence and many other gifts which we have been granted to our species by God. If the human species does fail to protect biodiversity and the environment as well as to preserve the integrity of Earth and itself, that will not necessarily mean that human beings are not the miraculous creatures we know ourselves to be. It could be, however, that the leaders of humanity will perversely have chosen to impersonate gods….
something human beings could not possibly have been meant to be.

A wonderful story.  It should give us hope that despite the many things man has done to eliminate cultures and invaluable biological wonders . . . the capacity to reach back to retrieve them, and then restore them still exists.

Many thanks to David Campbell, Molly Bang and to Don Berto.

Bill Mendenhall

I thank the godUniverse for our teachers such as Don Berto, who remind us that we are one of innumerable interrelated parts that depend on one another for our future. As a professional landscape gardener for 22 yrs, I have evolved a method of editing the landscape to create gardens, which resembles Don Berto’s: take out anything you don’t want, and appreciate and accomodate everything else that looks good or provides something we use, in a way that enhances the natural growth of species. When plants seed themselves in a particular location, it must be that they find everything they need for their growth, so they will thrive there. The commercial idea of planting things where you want them, for a purely aesthetic reason, often tries to thwart the natural tendencies of the ecosystem, but makes no sense, sort of like nations colonizing other lands and outlawing the native language of the people. As ridiculous an excercise as that is, however, it has been a part of an evolution of civilization, and if we pay enough attention to those teachers like Don Berto, we may eventually evolve into a truly civilized society.

What I do on a daily basis, as a teacher in the name of “education,” has always been more bitter than sweet… now those emotions have been put into words. Words of wisdom, and love. I dream of teaching in such meaningful/profound ways. May you continue to receive such a blessing as to live the life described in this article, and thank you for sharing it with those of us who can only dream of such things.