By Sean Fennell
Yesterday a boy I know well, Cheechihoh, was coming to the Sunburst garden to work with me. He pestered his “Lala,” Ilene about it all morning. She was enjoying her grandson’s summer visit at her Sunburst home. But she was concerned about taking him to the garden on such a hot afternoon. Finally, it seemed a bit cooler, so she brought him over to work with me.
Cheechihoh was amazed at all the new growth of the plants he had helped put into the ground as transplants only a few weeks earlier. His six-year-old mind had so many questions! After we placed drip hose along a newly planted bed, he saw the water dripping out onto the soil. He wanted to know, “Where is the water going?”
That afternoon, everything in nature seemed to be a cause for wonderment. While we were working, there was a rustling above us on the hillside. We stopped to observe the source, a doe with her two spotted fawns. The youngsters were playing, jumping around amidst the tall grass.
After a bit, Cheechihoh noticed some vultures sitting atop a fence at the far edge of the mandala garden beds. “Why are they sitting there?” he asked. I pointed to the area beneath a butterfly bush. There, very still, sat a mother quail on her nest of numerous eggs. They were probably soon to hatch.
After an hour and a half, our work was done. But my joy at seeing the garden through a young boy’s eyes would always be with me. I felt I had learned much more that afternoon than he had.
As we walked toward the gate to leave, Cheechihoh turned to me, asking, “Can I make this my playground whenever I come to Sunburst?”
My eyes teared up. One of our aims at Sunburst is to give others the opportunity to see Spirit alive in the glorious body of Nature that is Sunburst Sanctuary. What better gift could I have been given that day? May we all experience life through eyes filled with amazement and wonder.
