Gardening is a bloody carnage

I thought I was a saint, but I'm going to hell

Image by DALL-E3. AIs are apparently smart, but it took me ages to get a picture vaguely close to my original idea. One has to resign oneself.

When I think about my work, I’m sometimes reminded of Populous 3, a strategy video game from the late 1990s. In the game, the player, acting through the Shaman, a divine emissary, had the power to shape the small green-and-blue planets where the action took place by altering their physical geography (as well as attacking opposing tribes and unleashing some biblical cataclysm).

Here, then, is the gardener as an emanation of a benevolent god, transforming abandoned courtyards into lush quadrangles, and sunburnt terraces into hanging forests. Not bad, is it? And while the gardener cannot claim to create in the true sense, this being a peculiar characteristic of the divine, let us say that working with the elements provided by nature is already quite an accomplishment. A bit like the Valar, who fashioned Arda at Ilúvatar's behest… Something modest, in short.

The idea of planting a tree with one’s own hands, digging the hole that will house it… And then finding it, ten years later twice as big, brings a certain satisfaction, just as an example. Because, in the end, there’s also that psychological, atavistic, archetypal aspect of human nature: the continuous drive to transform the environment around us to our liking, often achieving, on a large scale, results that are unfortunately questionable, if not downright disastrous.

But such side effects do not occur when one devotes oneself body and soul to the garden, do they? It does not happen when one practices the distinguished art of cultivation. In short, cultivating is the gardener’s main job. And to cultivate for the beautiful, not for the useful. Not for the harvest, not to feed the body, but to gladden the eyes and the mind. To cultivate! To put one's knowledge, experience, and passion at the service of something superior, the point of contact between the natural order and human thought... In short, to cultivate! A marvel, something noble... Planting those seedlings, caring for them, helping them develop with a loving, magnanimous gesture that...

Cultivate. Yes, my master used to say that proudly, and that word was so powerful and all-encompassing. Cultivate. It meant everything. All the disciplines of gardening: theoretical, manual, technical, artistic, scientific, cultural... Cultivate. A wonderful act. An almost divine act, indeed.

Cultivate.

On a May morning, dew bathes the large wild meadow, dotted with the flowers of wild species. The grass is tall and fresh, the sun already warming. And here is the hiss of the nylon thread, glowing in the light like a murderous disc, here is the vibration in the handle. As I proceed with the cut, I feel soft projectiles striking my body, some bolts exploding on the mesh of my visor, drenching my face with liquid. I stop. I investigate. Snails. The grass is full of them, as full as my shirt is of the remains of their bodies. Here is one at my feet, perhaps it has been spared by the whip. I pick it up. The creature tries to retract itself into a shell that half of it no longer has, as does the upper portion of its body, now reduced to a wet pulp. I observe it. Its wet foot is an iridescent kaleidoscope of microscopic undulations, and the tentacles carrying its eyes contract in a rhythmic spasm. Is it in pain? I think so. I swear, and drop the poor mollusc to the ground, stepping on it with such force that my ankle almost hurts, delivering a merciful coup de grâce that is almost a punishment to myself. I restart the engine and get back to work. What to do? I can only keep the cutting level a little higher, hoping that some small creature can save itself by hiding at the base of the foliage.
Every time, it's a bloody carnage of invertebrates. Always.

But not only that. There was the time of the little snake, which scattered into pieces like a tattered rope. I remember the stump of its body with its head, and its little yellow iris eye staring motionless. I threw the brushcutter away from me, determined never to cut the grass again. And what about the tree frog I found, almost completely dry, at the end of one summer morning? It had been whipped away from its damp, leafy refuge. The beautiful black-spotted lizard with its emerald-green body: why did it not flee at my approach? Ah, it no longer had the top of its head. I could see its tiny tongue clearly in the hollow of its jaw. And the roe deer fawn I found dead a couple of days after my passage? With that one, I could only suspect some responsibility.
Then there was the gecko, which I had to kill with the handle of the shovel, smashing its head. I had held it in my hand for a few minutes, still alive, aware of the ineluctable fate I would have to unhappily determine. The poor creature had taken refuge under a heavy vase I was moving, and the back of its body was mangled, with its intestines protruding from its abdomen. My heart broke, as always.

What about the anthills in the hollows of trees, annihilated by the chainsaw? And the earthworms, the gardeners' good friends, chopped up and ground every time the soil is worked with shovels and spades (no, they do not multiply by being dismembered)?

What about all those insects we call pests? Is it their fault that they are what they are? Did you know that most insecticides act at the neurological level, causing all the muscles of arthropods to contract simultaneously? The animals usually suffocate to death. Try watching an aphid as it drags its legs, stiffening. Not to mention all the friendly fire! Have courage and take a walk around the garden after spraying those diabolical insecticides on your plants. You’ll find a plethora of collateral victims among bees, ladybirds, spiders, and an endless hecatomb of small creatures.

Poor animal victims, forgive me if you can!

What about plants? The plants, which belong to the category of living beings that I presume to care for? For every plant I grow, how many are weeded, ripped up, and torn from the soil? How many seeds are swept away at the sprouting of the tender radicle that peeps out between the cotyledons still enclosed by the tegument? Countless hosts. They are the weeds, a mutable category that we have labelled malignant. But perhaps plant life is different? I don’t think so, to the point where the same plant can be called a weed or not, depending on the context.

How many plants have I destroyed? A countless number.

Behold, I had long been plagued by such guilt until I discovered that, in the small village of fifteen souls not far from my home, resides a venerable Kung-Fu master (that's true!)... Who has requested my services several times (aren't Kung-Fu masters also skilled gardeners?). As is often the case whenever I work for him, the master is wont to impart some of his great wisdom, and we strike up a pleasant conversation.

“You are an aggressive person,” he said to me one day.
”Me? No way!” I replied.
”You are. Think about the job you've chosen for yourself.”
At that moment, the idea of the holy gardener materialised in my mind: love, care, cultivation (to cultivate!), the goddamn image of those pure hands enclosing a clump of soil from which a seedling sprouts (which is constantly found on the Internet! Have you ever seen the hands of a real gardener, by the way?).
”You spend your life imposing your will on other living beings through the use of blades and violence,” the master concluded, with a serene smile.
I was astonished. He was damn right. I am not the benefactor of the small, semi-artificial ecosystems known as gardens. I am an emissary of Shiva, the Destroyer!

“When man no longer feels the need to act on the world around him, he has found Prana,” the first disciple of the Venerable Master said to me (I also worked for her).
Now, I know nothing about Oriental philosophy or Prana, but the concept is clear: that innate spark, that urge to transform and manipulate, which I have always viewed positively as a creative impulse, is, instead, a malicious mechanism that damages other living beings and the balance of things.
How discouraging. Why, then, act? What is the point of intervening anywhere? Is the right course to remain still and serene, watching the grass grow? Why, damn it, do the venerable master and his epigones call me to work in their gardens? Is theirs a transitive violence?
These, and many others, are the questions of my heart.

While waiting for answers that will probably never come, I ask forgiveness from all the spirits of the living beings I have annihilated, much like the Kamchatka natives who apologise to the salmon after they have eaten it (I saw it in a documentary, beautiful!).

Apologise, O all you spirits, for my actions!

I am a gardener and, unfortunately, will continue to be one. That is why I am going to hell. For this, and also because I often indulge in blasphemous swearing while I work.

Until next time.