The Inherent Intelligence of Wildness

In last week's Novel Writing class, we focused on creating compelling characters. I encouraged everyone to note how telling details, yearnings, inner conflicts help build complex characters.

Trolling for character sketches? The obituary pages never fail to offer up fascinating characters....I mean people.

Case in point: Today's obit from the NYT about a Zen abbot and photographer:

He set up an institute to apply Zen principles to environmental matters, hoping to bring people closer to “the inherent intelligence of wildness.” He also began a program to teach Zen to prison inmates...
The monastery [he helped found] fit right into a Catskills spiritual scene that already included Zen, Hindu, Tibetan Buddhist, yoga and various New Age centers. Abbot Loori decreed that 80 percent of the 230 acres he had just bought would have to remain “forever wild,” which meant no manicuring of the landscape.

Green Thoughts: These Deaths are Stingless

Advice from The Bard, himself, on my rain-soaked, weed happy patch of front yard:

Now 'tis the spring, and weeds are shallow-rooted;
Suffer them now, and they'll o'ergrow the garden,
And choke the herbs for want of husbandry.
--2nd Henry VI, II(3)31

Well, but first there's writing to do. Not to mention blogging. And reading. The NYT obituary section remains a favorite of mine. Weird, maybe, but packed with the most fascinating tales. Ah, the arc of the well-lived life! Take today's notice about Eleanor Perenyi, baroness, gardener, who never finished high school, lived in Connecticut, and left behind a treasure: Green Thoughts: A Writer in the Garden, "widely considered a classic in garden writing."
An excerpt:

“When will the final curtain fall?” she wrote in an essay on autumn in “Green Thoughts.” “Heavier dews presage the morning when the moisture will have turned to ice, glazing the shriveled dahlias and lima beans, and the annuals will be blasted beyond recall. These deaths are stingless. I wouldn’t want it otherwise. I gardened one year in a tropical country and found that eternal bloom led to ennui.” [my emphasis]

Reminder: As if you needed it. The "Seedy Characters" Contest ends tomorrow at midnight. Scroll down to see you can enter. Good Luck!