the mystery of manure

An Excerpt from The Lively Garden Prayer Book by William Cleary

The Lively Garden Prayer Book is a little book that pays tribute to the "Green Spirit God."

Here, for example, is nature's way of practicing transformation.

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"Among the deeper mysteries of life is the mystery of manure,

how awful it smells,

how disgusting it looks,

how repulsive it feels —

yet how delicious it is to our vegetable cousins in the garden:

the tomatoes, the corn, the carrots.

"We put manure right into their bed.

They not only welcome it, but they take it in,

and through the life powers within them,

absorb its very substance into their individual beings,

transforming its smelly and disgusting substance miraculously into

bright shining red tomatoes,

yellow luscious corn,

sweet wholesome carrots.

"Miraculously, that execrable manure has now turned into something humans can eat:

nourishing, sweet-smelling food, delicious to the mouth and life-giving to every part of our bodies —

a magic we might expect to find only in mythical Eden."

photos of our vegetable patch