Orwell's Roses

by Rebecca Solnit

Nature itself is immensely political, in how we imagine, interact with, and impact it, though this was not much recognized in his era.

Orwell did not believe in permanent happiness or the politics that tried to realize it, but he did believe devoutly in moments of delight, even rapture, and he wrote about them often, from these early books to Nineteen Eighty-Four.

In an age of lies and illusions, the garden is one way to ground yourself in the realm of the processes of growth and the passage of time, the rules of physics, meteorology, hydrology, and biology, and the realms of the senses.