The Garden

As I walked into the forest, there was a stone doorway. It was very elaborately made and looked as if you touched it, it would fall apart. As I walked through this beautiful doorway, I saw and smelled the most beautiful world imaginable! I smelled Honeysuckle, Lilac, Lavender, Roses and Gardenia. It was heavenly! And they were the most brilliantly, vivid colors I had ever seen! The sun was shining bright and there was a slight cool breeze carrying the scents to me. I bent over to smell a beautiful, deep red rose and it seemed to shy away from me, as if scared. "What' wrong", I asked. The little rose raised it's head a little and replied, "I was afraid that you wanted to pick me. And then I would die"

"I speak for all of the Earth, but mostly for the flowers and creatures who live here in my garden. We want you to enjoy all of us, but let us live to enjoy our home. Take pictures instead of taking us home with you and putting us in a vase to die and be thrown out. Then you just go and pluck more of us from our homes, only to repeat the cycle over and over. Keep us in your hearts and memories and when the memories need replenished, look at your pictures or come back and visit us in our enchanted home. As long as we stay here, we will never wilt or die." "Please tell me more", I said with amazement. "May I stay a while and chat with you?" "Kiss my petals and you will have me in your heart forever, instead of picking me and only having me and my friends in a vase for a very short while." Will you spread this world to the people when you leave?" "Absolutely, I will", I promised. "I will even create a sign for your door to tell any future visitors. I have the supplies to do that in my backpack. I don't carry a camera, but I would love to capture your beauty and personality in a sketch. Would that be ok?" "Absolutely!" said the rose. "Do you mind if some of my friends join us?" "The more the merrier!" I exclaimed. The rose whistled a beautiful song onto the wind and the wind carried it throughout the garden, as I gathered my supplies for my art and the sign for their door.

Before long I was surrounded by a plethora of insects and other creatures. There were honeybees & ladybugs, rabbits & squirrels, frogs, turtles & lizards all vying for my attention. I calmed them all and said I would stay long enough to talk to each one for just a moment. And that I would be sure each had their own say in the article that I planned to write to help them get their words out. I told them, "The rose said his main complaint with humans is that they pick flowers, just to watch them die. What is your main complaint, honeybee?" "Well," he started, "kinda the same thing. They are killing off all the flowers and making harder and harder for us to get the pollen and nectar we need to survive and many of my kind are dying off. If we aren't pollenating flowers, vegetables and fruits, they will all die....and then what? YOU will have no fruits nor vegetables and you too will die." "That is SO true," I said. "And what is your main complaint, rabbit?" "Well, our habitats are getting smaller and smaller because of all the construction going up all over for the humans to live, shop and play. We have fewer and fewer places to live!" "Who else has another complaint?", I asked. The frog spoke and said, "I speak for my friends turtle, lizard and myself. The waterways are getting so dirty that we have a very hard time surviving. The pollution kills the fish and makes it hard to find something to eat. And kills the plant life, so there are less places to hide." The ladybug said, "I think our message to the humans would just be, Please leave us alone to live in our world and we will do our best to make your world a nicer place to live. We can work together, if they let us. This enchanted forest is really the only place we can truly be safe and we would like to be safe out there too."

I promised them that I would get their words to the people and hope that they heard me. They all loved the sign that I had made them and the drawing that I would put with my article too. They called to me and waved until I was out of sight. My heart never left that place and my mind was always trying to find ways to make my world as enchanted as theirs.