On an early morning walk, the cheerful exuberance of clover thriving in the cracks of a brick stairway caught my eye. I love tracing the graceful arc of the stems and marveling at the multitude of blooms condensed into each lovely sphere of flowers. The spent flowers falling toward their stem speak of a prior day’s work — and the emerging flowers in the center await a new day — today’s work.
What are the works of clover? Well, beauty to our eyes, pollen for the honey bees and other pollinators; in pastures they provide food for cattle; and their roots provide energy for their symbiotic Rhizobium bacteria. These bacteria in turn make life on earth possible as fixers of atmospheric nitrogen — converting some of air’s 78% nitrogen into nitrate, an essential nutrient for plant life.
I’ve been thinking a lot about ground, perhaps because I’ve been digging in the yard almost daily for two weeks — working on drainage and new plantings. But more likely because “ground” is a recurring theme in the writings of Eckhart.
Eckhart instructs that people should not think too much about what they could do, but rather what they could be. In the following quote, I like to substitute “holiness” with “beauty” or “wholeness.” This can be helpful to demystify the word “holy” and honor it’s root meaning: from a PIE root meaning “whole, uninjured” (Etymology Online)
“We ought not to think of building holiness upon action; we ought to build it upon a way of being, for it is not what we do that makes us holy, but we ought to make holy what we do. … As we are holy and have being, to that extent we make all our works holy, be it eating, sleeping, …. or whatever they may be.”
Meister Eckhart, Counsel 4
The clover I espied today found good ground between the clay bricks. She danced her own holy “way of being,” sinking roots, creating holy and glorious works — both above and below ground. Having my eyes opened a bit by her display, so many more holy works of the plant world caught my eye. Here is one example:
One more brief quote:
Take good heed: We ought to do everything we can to be good. It does not matter so much what we may do, or what kinds of works ours may be; what matters is the ground on which the works are built.
Meister Eckhart, Counsel 4
So, living today as I am — a human being (and not, as some say, a human doing), I hope to take good heed of my way of being and ponder the source of my ground of being.
