There is no naturally flat land in the ravine that's home to Lakkosketti. Through the use of terraces, however, sections of land can be made habitable for structures and gardens. Certain crops, or course, do just fine on slopes, e.g., olive trees and grape vines. Indeed, olive groves and vinyards dot the landscape.
Onions, garlic, peppers, tomatoes, and the like enjoy the terraces. I arrived last week just in time to see the work on the nearby gardens begin with rotatilling, and, since then, with the planting of seeds and the installation of the irrigation system.
The planting of this garden is almost complete:
The irrigation system is something to behold. Each row has its own pvc pipe hovering over it with tiny holes directed downward, connected at one end to a pvc 'main' line. Each connection has its own shut off for fine tuning water distribution, but I believe they are in general left on and simply controlled by the main.
This system is in place everywhere. For example, vines are growing on the trellises over 'my' front patio, on the trellises over the courtyard where visitors are greeted and where people gather in the evenings to socialize, on the fences surrounding the gardens, and everywhere else you could imagine; each and every vine has its personalized water delivery tube with its own shut off valve. The same is true for the trees in the olive grove, and the strawberry patch, and everything else that needs to grow.
The gardener's name is Bogdan--a soft spoken and gentle man. I would guess he's a little older than I am. He's not a monastic but part of a small group of workers who live here and support the monastic community in various ways, especially construction work and gardening. [Subsequent correction: I later found out that Bogan, while he lives with the workers, came to Lakkosketti about three months ago and is its newest novice.]
Last week Bogdan planted hundreds of onion sets. (Every meal here is onion and garlic, and a carrier of some sort--potatoes, rice, beans, fish; they are without exception delicious.). Bogdan planted each and every onion set with such mindful intentionality it was if the entire nutritional content for the monastic community depended on this one onion. Nothing was done hurriedly or carelessly. It was a joy to behold his patient and loving conscientiousness in this simple manual labor.
I mentioned in an earlier post that in the morning services the Jesus prayer is said communally prior to the start of the Divine Liturgy. One person, usually not a monastic but someone from the support community, says the prayer a hundred times and then another takes over. Bogdan almost always goes first:
Doamne, Iisuse Hristoase, miluieste-ne pe noi. (Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us.)
His voice is unhurried, soft, and penetrating. It is deep, rumbling like approaching thunder that, when it arrives, vibrates the flesh and reverberates in the soul. Then a pause, and again:
Doamne, Iisuse Hristoase, miluieste-ne pe noi.
And so he continues with the relentless rythym of waves pounding the sea coast, gradually sculpting the image that lies within.
Doamne, Iisuse Hristoase, miluieste-ne pe noi.
The words flow with a comfort that reveals his familiarity with them. They're his faithful and inseparable companions--as natural as his breath, and yet not at all thoughtless. Indeed, he plants each word in the heart as he plants onion sets in the garden, with the attentive mindfulness that the spiritual nutrition of the gathered community depends on each and every word:
Doamne, Iisuse Hristoase, miluieste-ne pe noi.
