Hryts’ Garden
By Walter Kish
I am at that stage in life when one is prone
to reflect upon one’s past in a quest to find some meaning and purpose to what
one has lived through. This is a
dangerous quest, usually best not attempted without the assistance of a good
cognac or single malt scotch, as philosophy can wreck havoc on your mental
well-being.
When I was much younger, my
curiosity led me to explore the writings of the great philosophers – Aristotle,
Plato, Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Rousseau, Kierkegaard and Foucault. In trying to understand the essentials of
religion and spirituality, I read The Bible, The Torah, The Koran and the
ancient classic texts that underpin the teachings of Buddha, Confucius and
Hinduism. As I became increasingly drawn
to exploring my Ukrainian identity, I had the good fortune to discover the
wisdom of undoubtedly one of the greatest intellects in Ukrainian history,
18th-century philosopher and poet Hryhorii Skovoroda. They were all fascinating
reading, and though I was impressed by the collective wisdom of these works, I
found it hard to relate their often abstract ideals to the realities and
challenges of my everyday life.
In this I know I am not
alone. Amongst my wide circle of
relatives, friends and acquaintances, I do not know many whom I would consider
to be satisfied with their knowledge and understanding of how life works.
Of course, the one obvious
exception is my cousin Hryts from the bucolic village of Pidkamin, the garlic
and horseradish capital of
I remember in particular one
occasion when we were sitting on a fine autumn evening under an old apple tree
in his large and prolific garden. I had
brought a bottle of fine Armenian brandy with me from Kyiv, and encouraged by
its warmth and inspirational after effects, I was ruminating on my continuing
spiritual quest to understand life and my role in it. I tried to explain to Hryts the essential
conflict between the more traditional theological approaches and the pragmatic
existentialism of twentieth century thinkers.
Hryts, listened politely
sipping on his brandy, before interrupting me with a gentle laugh and poke in
the ribs with his gnarled walking stick.
“If you want to understand
life,” he said, “you should spend less time reading books and more of it
getting your hands dirty planting a garden like this one. This garden can teach
you more about life than any book on philosophy.”
“You see, getting the most
out of life is like getting the most of this garden. You have to plan ahead; you have to devote
time and hard work to it; you have to defend it from those that would steal the
fruits of your labour. You also have to
understand that even if you do all that, acts of God like storms and diseases
can fall upon you at random and destroy your garden, so you have to make sure
you save up and store enough to carry you through hard times.”
“Consider too, that people
are like the various plants in this garden – what you see on the surface is
often very different from what is underneath.
To get at the best parts, you sometimes have to dig deep.”
He got up, reached down and
pulled up a stalk of garlic.
“A person is like this head
of garlic.” He continued. “You have to peel away the outer layers to get at the
goodness inside.”
“Not only that, but look at
most of these plants here – so long as they are well rooted, they will keep
growing. But pull them out of their
native soil and they soon wither away”.
“Remember too, that where
there is a garden there will always be weeds trying to get a free ride. A well run society is like a well tended
garden – fertilized, watered and looked after carefully to prevent the weeds
from taking over!”
I passed the rest of the
evening listening to Hryts explaining life through the prism of his
garden. I realized that it certainly
made a lot more sense than Kierkegaard.