Song Meaning
This song paints love as a delicate, living thing, much like a flower. It needs the essentials – water, air, light, and warmth – to survive. The lyrics emphasize that love isn't passive; it requires constant nurturing, like watering a plant every single day. This daily care is framed as happening within the 'garden of faith,' suggesting a spiritual or deeply held belief system as the foundation for sustaining love.
The central tension lies in the active effort required to maintain love against the unpredictable elements of life. The narrator has planted 'a foot of hope' in the 'garden of time,' enduring 'day, rain, wind, and thought.' This imagery highlights that hope, and by extension love, must weather life's inevitable storms and uncertainties. It’s a process that unfolds over time, shaped by experience and internal reflection.
The most striking aspect is the transformation of abstract concepts into tangible elements within a garden metaphor. Hope is planted, and through the 'living experience' and the passage of time, it grows into 'conscience.' This evolution suggests that love, nurtured through faith and hope, ultimately cultivates a deeper understanding and awareness, becoming a 'fruit of experience.' The repetition of 'It is consciousness' reinforces this profound outcome.
Ultimately, the lyrics resonate because they ground the abstract ideal of love in concrete, relatable actions and natural processes. The flower metaphor, combined with the imagery of planting and tending a garden, makes the demanding nature of love feel both challenging and achievable. It’s a reminder that love, like a garden, thrives not by chance, but through consistent, mindful cultivation, yielding a profound inner awareness as its ultimate reward.