I've never been much of a gardener, but a friend had gotten a plot in our local community garden and was having such fun--and success--with it that I decided to give it a shot, too.
So I signed up for my little 3 x 20 foot plot and got to work.
They say that in order to garden in the hot, dry Sonoran Desert, you must first forget everything you ever knew about gardening elsewhere.
That was the easy part for me.
But I learned a lot; the master gardeners there were generous with their knowledge.
It turns out that if you amend the soil properly, irrigate, and protect your tender, emerging seedlings from the voracious little rabbits and quail, you can actually produce quite a bumper crop.
My garden was flourishing.
Every time I went, I found my plants (most of them anyway) were thriving-often twice the size they were on a previous visit.
I was particularly proud of my artichoke, which was producing even better than the fellow at the nursery said it would.
Every week I was harvesting artichokes to take home and savor.
My daughter and I even created quite an elaborate artichoke ritual, involving a heavenly lemony mayonnaise sauce and precise cuts to extricate the heart at the appropriate time.
Many a satisfying summer dinner featured little more than artichokes...
But then, I went out of town for a couple of weeks.
When I next visited the garden, I was distraught to discover that my beautiful artichokes had bloomed (who knew they even did that??) Bright purple "spikes" were jutting out of the tops; they were clearly inedible.
I was mad.
What a waste! I should have asked friends to tend the garden in my absence, I berated myself.
At least they could have enjoyed them.
I picked up my clippers and angrily began to cut the miserable things off.
I even got into something of a rhythm.
Clip, curse, toss; clip, curse, toss...
I had accumulated quite a pile, and finally stopped to pick it up.
I was going to haul it all over to the chopping block where I planned to take out my frustrations with the machete and turn the whole mess into compost, when it finally hit me that...
actually...
you know...
they were kind of pretty, like some sort of rare garden sea urchin.
So my blooming artichokes were granted a reprieve.
I packed them away in my gardening bag and took them home, where I set up a small cornucopia-type arrangement with some lavender.
Amazingly, although the artichokes dried and turned a soft tan color, the bright purple "blooms" remained vivid.
That beautiful, fragrant arrangement ultimately brought me even more pleasure than eating the artichokes would have.
The whole episode turned out to be one of those "happy accidents," which is actually how the symbolic cornucopia came into being, too...
Today, the cornucopia is typically a hollow, horn-shaped wicker basket filled to overflowing with various festive fruits and vegetables.
In North America, it has come to be associated with Thanksgiving and the harvest.
But the cornucopia as a symbol of the abundance of Mother Earth actually dates back to the 5th century BC.
It is also referred to as the horn of plenty, horn of Amalthea and the harvest cone, and has its origins in Greek Mythology.
As a child, the god Zeus was nursed by a goat, Amalthea, in a cave on Crete, where he had been sent to keep his father Cronus from eating him.
According to at least one version of the story, Zeus accidentally broke off one of Amalthea's horns while they were playing together.
Zeus felt so bad that he gave her back her horn with supernatural powers-it would give whoever possessed it whatever they wished for.
You remember the bionic man? Well, this was the bionic horn-better than it was before.
Based on this myth, the original cornucopia was a curved goat's horn filled with fruits and flowers or grains.
Since it symbolizes abundance, the cornucopia is most often associated with the goddess of the harvest, Demeter.
But I'm a long way from Greece as I write this.
I'm actually in Oaxaca, Mexico.
There is a concert in the zócalo or central plaza just outside my window.
Right now it's South American flutes, but earlier it was a brass band.
Last night was mariachis and later-from the sound of things-drums.
There is nearly always some sort of festivity, parade or celebration going on (often simultaneously)! It reminded me of a study that was done by some academics a few years back.
They were researching the correlation between wealth and happiness on a worldwide level.
You would think this would be a no-brainer, wouldn't you? (Lots of times when I read about the ridiculous projects these researchers manage to get funded, I can only shake my head...
).
And sure enough, overall they found that the wealthier the country or region was, the happier and more satisfied the people were in general.
That is, until they got to Latin America.
There all their charts and graphs went haywire.
It turned out that the people there were much happier than they should have been based on their socioeconomic level.
I could have saved them a lot of effort--I've known this for a long time.
It is one of the things that has always attracted me to Mexico and other Latin American countries.
The people there don't wait for anything to come to them-they make their own, and from whatever they have on hand.
So whether it's an impromptu kitchen band of pots, pans and other cooking implements such as was frequently featured around the kitchen table of the family I lived with in Costa Rica, or arts and crafts made from discarded tin cans and gum wrappers, to even (yes, I own one!) a fabulous fire pit made from the drum of a discarded washing machine, Latinos are experts in recognizing the unexpected potential in seemingly ordinary, even worthless, things.
I think they have the right idea.
Maybe the real secret to abundance is not so much "attracting" it (despite all the books out there that promise to teach us how to do exactly that), but in learning to recognize it.
Interestingly, the word in Spanish for recognize, is reconocer, literally "to meet or know again," suggesting a buried skill or knowledge that perhaps we simply need to cultivate.
Especially right now, it's easy to get caught up in the "woe is me" mentality.
But when we open our eyes and attitudes to the cornucopia of potential around us, we may be pleasantly surprised to discover that our lives really are "plenty-full.
" And the next time I am faced with something that didn't turn out quite as expected, I hope that instead of cursing and heading directly for the nearest chopping block, I'll have the sense to exclaim, "Blooming Artichokes!" Not so much in surprise, but recognition.
Because, really, this is the way to cultivate abundance, and to make of our lives a garden.