Nature’s Ordinary Wonders: Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps on Mindful Botany
Today's Garden Words were featured on The Daily Gardener podcast:
Words inspired by the garden are the sweetest,
most beautiful words of all.
July 15, 1793
On this day, we celebrate the birth of the remarkable Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps.
Her pioneering work in science education helped shape the minds of countless young women, including possibly Emily Dickinson.
As an educator, author, and editor, she embraced nature as both a subject of study and a source of spiritual wisdom over two centuries ago, reminding us to practice mindfulness amidst the ordinary wonders around us.
Phelps once wrote,
“So, in the physical world mankind are prone to seek an explanation of uncommon phenomena only, while the ordinary changes of nature, which are in themselves equally wonderful, are disregarded.”
Her insight speaks directly to gardeners and nature lovers: grand spectacle is not required to find amazement.
The simple, everyday unfolding of life—from the opening of a bud to the ripening of a seed—is itself a marvel worthy of our deepest attention.
She also observed,
“How often are the beauties of nature unheeded by man, who, musing on past ills, brooding over the possible calamities of the future, building castles in the air, or wrapped up in his own self-love and self-importance, forgets to look abroad, or looks with a vacant stare.”
Here, Phelps gently chides us for distraction and calls us back to presence—the practice so essential in gardening as in life.
Her lyrical faith shines through in this line:
“Each opening bud, and care-perfected seed, is as a page, where we may read of God.”
This eloquent metaphor reminds us that nature’s smallest acts of growth are sacred texts inviting study, reverence, and wonder.
It is a call to perceive the divine in the details—the serrated edge of a leaf, the delicate swirl of a flower petal, each a testament to patterns far greater than ourselves.
Phelps’s legacy extends beyond her poetry and prose. Her textbook, Familiar Lectures on Botany, first published in 1829, was a groundbreaking contribution to science education, especially for young women at a time when such knowledge was often withheld from them.
Her teaching emphasized not just facts, but observation and thoughtful reflection—the foundations of both botany and mindful living.
As we honor Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps today, may we also take her words to heart and attune ourselves to the wonders often overlooked.
In every garden bud, in every seed, lies a story waiting to be read, a moment of grace inviting us to pause, to notice, and to connect more deeply with the living world around us.