{"id":5393,"date":"2022-09-10T16:49:55","date_gmt":"2022-09-10T20:49:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/simplestead.com\/?p=5393"},"modified":"2025-12-28T06:51:44","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T11:51:44","slug":"garden-library","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/simplestead.com\/?p=5393","title":{"rendered":"Snake Warnings and Cicero"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One of my favorite parts of our rustic homestead is a woodland trail that winds steeply to the uppermost limit of our property. Over the past 8 years of walking it, I’ve crossed paths with many snakes there. Like polite strangers, we note each others’ presence and continue on our separate ways. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently, I had a different kind of snake encounter. Just before dusk, the dogs and I started up the trail eager to log some mileage before we lost the light. They caught wind of something and went dashing ahead. I walked on, watching Luna and Linus disappear in the distance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Suddenly, I found myself jumping back several feet and cautiously walking backward for several more feet until I was out of reach of the coiled up copperhead that had just struck at me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lesson from a Copperhead<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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For a few days, after that encounter, I felt as if I’d just barely saved myself from a venomous bite. That brush with severe illness (and a potentially large hospital bill) made me feel vulnerable. What if I hadn’t noticed at exactly the right moment to get out of the way on time?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started wearing my work boots everywhere. I walked our paths defensively. Like driving in traffic, I slammed on my foot breaks at small sounds. I felt pangs of adrenalin recede upon spotting the bird or lizard that made them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Then, I dreamt I was walking on a moonlit trail. It was lined with hundreds of snakes bearing their venomous fangs and striking near my legs. Yet not one of them actually bit me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I woke, I knew I hadn’t miraculously escaped tragedy thanks to my amazing reflexes. That copperhead only gave me a warning strike and allowed me to safely step back. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also knew my dream wasn’t just about my snake encounter in the woods. Life is full of natural warnings that help us navigate safely and find true meaning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Garden and a Library<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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If you are a gardener, reader, writer, or librarian, I bet you’ve heard this one by Marcus Tullius Cicero. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need”.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Today, this idea is often treated as a lifestyle destination: to own a personal library and a garden<\/em>. Yet, that application of the quote doesn’t mesh with the everything we know about Cicero. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cicero was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and writer who traveled extensively. As a famous political orator, fluent in Greek and Latin, he reinvented himself many times through political and personal controversy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also made other grand statements that are as true today as they were two millennia ago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cSix mistakes mankind keeps making century after century:
Believing that personal gain is made by crushing others;
Worrying about things that cannot be changed or corrected;
Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it;
Refusing to set aside trivial preferences;
Neglecting development and refinement of the mind;
Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.\u201d<\/p>\nMarcus Tullius Cicero<\/strong><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

That first Cicero quote wasn’t just about owning a personal garden and library in our modern terms. It was a formula for navigating the complexity of the times he lived in and his personal limitations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roman Libraries<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Libraries<\/a> in Cicero’s time were social spaces where intellectuals gathered to continually educate themselves by reading. The scrolls they housed were academic works on history, science, politics, philosophy, and other cultures. Using them was the ancient equivalent to getting an advanced degree at a top university today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wealthy Romans, like Cicero, designated scroll rooms in their homes to keep their collections of critical texts. Those well-curated personal libraries were like magnets used to attract acclaimed scholars and intellectuals to visit your villa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roman Gardens<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Roman gardens<\/a>, as places of refuge from urban life, were relatively new concepts back then. Many people had food plots, of course. Yet, ornamental pleasure gardens and edible landscapes were on the cutting edge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were influenced heavily by Egyptian, Persian, and Greek culture. They functioned as symbols of multiculturalism and intellectualism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pleasure gardens were created by designers, natural philosophers, architects, and engineers. And they were also used as gathering spaces for complex political interactions and philosophical inquiry in the Epicurean Garden<\/a><\/em> sense. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gardens were also places where intellectuals could apply their knowledge of the natural world. Cicero put it this way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“By means of our hands we struggle to create, a second world within the world of nature.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Innovative Spaces<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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For Cicero, gardens and libraries weren’t old-fashioned, reclusive spaces that evoked ideas of isolation and retreat. They were intellectually stimulating, exciting, and entirely modern spaces that offered refuge from ignorance, mediocrity, and boredom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Libraries and gardens also served as strategic social settings for intellectual sharing, philosophical discourse, and political influence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cicero in Context<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

That quote “If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need” is part of a letter that Cicero wrote<\/a> to Marcus Terentius Varro. Varro was Rome’s leading garden and agriculture expert of that time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he penned those words, Cicero lived in exile in his villa, barred by Caesar from participating political life. He also wrote that ‘Being driven from my dominion in the forum, I have erected a sort of Academy in my own house’<\/em>. Cicero was offering his library, garden, and academy as enticements to convince Varro to visit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Basically, Cicero survived exile not because he had<\/em> a library and a garden. He survived because he used them<\/em> to attract important visitors to exert political influence even while banished. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Villa Academy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Eight years ago, Matt and I turned an inexpensive piece of agriculturally-unsuitable land into our home academy of sorts. We were both educated by today’s standards. But we lacked the basic self-provisioning knowledge that the average peasant in Cicero’s times would have possessed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here, at our self-made villa academy, we learned, practiced, and perfected those self-provisioning skills. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We also lacked knowledge of how to interact effectively with and influence natural systems. For example, we understood the mathematical framework for calculating the force of gravity. But we’d never harnessed it, using the weight of water over an elevation drop, to create an automated irrigation system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our homestead became our laboratory for putting that kind of theoretical knowledge to work in practical applications. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mastering that missing knowledge seemed critical in the context of the challenges of our times (e.g., climate change). In Cicero’s words, we understood this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cTo be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.\u201d<\/p>\n\u2015 Marcus Tullius Cicero<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Our Garden and Library<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Our gardens are made in the same spirit of Roman estate gardens. They aren’t old-fashioned by any means. They’re climate change resilient, self-regulating, ecological spaces informed by emerging scientific data and experimentation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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They’re also smaller, more practical, and created on a limited budget relative to their ancient Roman equivalents. Plus, for us, they aren’t status symbols. They constitute part of our contribution toward improving our shared environment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A post shared by Tasha Greer (@exploresimplestead)<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>