JOYS and CHALLENGES OF TAMING THE WILD GARDENS ON STILL MOUNTAIN

Working outside was so exhilarating that we pushed too hard and fell prey to the dreaded “dead hero syndrome”

May 18, 2025

Written and published by Chinmayan in loving appreciation of all life!

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STILL MOUNTAIN CHRONICLES SECTION # 197

Stories by Chinmayan about our life in pursuit of simple living, our own spiritual path and our service to the world in a small meditation center in the mountains of Northern California

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Top Image: “Still Mountain Heritage Roses Grown From Cuttings”

Bottom Image: “Our Friends In The Green Fields Surrounding Still Mountain At The End Of A Beautiful Spring Day.”

All images in this story by Chinmayan, except as noted

THE JOYS and CHALLENGES OF TAMING OUR WILD GARDENS

Perfect Spring Days Are Here

The rainy days of last week have moved on to be replaced with perfect Spring days of soft sun and cooling breezes.

We have been working in the gardens here on Still Mountain for the past few days and it has been surprisingly intoxicating.

The long hard winter forced us to stay inside almost every day, as we sheltered from the storms that lashed Still Mountain with one intense atmospheric ruver after another.

We lost touch with the land itself, but now that spring is bringing forth so much rebirth and renewal, we are outside much more in a kind of rediscovery of the natural beauty of Still Mountain.

It rained for so long and so late into the year that every plant and tree and bush that can bud out and make flowers is blooming or getting ready to.

Every plant is putting out tendrils of new growth.

In the small meadow of the south yard, the grass is thick and chest high so that it looks like a sea of green waves when the wind plays with it.

Photo by Ani “Chinmayan Cutting Tall Grass in the South Meadow”

Taming Our Wild Gardens

Ani is a master gardener who does wonderful things with all plants but has a special talent for roses.

We have an ancient heritage rose that makes the biggest roses with the most delightful smell of any I have ever seen.

Ani took small cuttings from it and over two years has grown twenty new plants which are all two feet high and thriving.

She also has an excellent eye for design, which is reflected in the symmetry and beauty of the Meditation Garden.

Over the past few days, she has metiulously gone through our Meditation Garden, which like the rest of the land had reverted to a wild, overgrown state during the long hard winter.

She has weeded, raked, pruned and cleared the garden back into beautiful condition, which was an intense amount of work to get done in just a few days.

By the end of today, she realized she had pushed too hard in her zeal and was utterly exhausted and having sharp pains in her shoulders from over exertion. She had fallen into what we call the dreaded dead hero syndrome.

Photo Credit: Chinmayan “Starting To Work In Meditation Garden”

My First Episode Of The “Dead Hero Syndrome”

I am an excellent landscaper and tree trimmer, but a master at cutting grass with a big commercial weedeater.

I began my training back in 1964, back before weedeaters were invented.

My dad was a state park superintendent who had promised me I could start working with the crew the summer I turned 14 years old to be trained as a volunteer.

On my first day, he put me on a team that was responsible for keeping the grounds inside and around a Civil War fort in immaculate condition.

He had told the crew that morning that I was there to learn the various skills of their work, but that they were to push me and show no favoritism just because I was his son.

The interior of the fort had steep sloping ramparts where a mower couldn’t go.

The foreman gave me a sling blade and after showing me how to swing it back and forth to cut grass, set me to doing one of the toughest jobs—cutting the tall grass on the ramparts right down to the ground.

A sling blade is a double-sided piece of steel with serrated teeth mounted on a hickory handle that is slung back and forth just above the ground to cut grass.

It was very hard, rough work because it had to be done so that it looked as crisp and even as if a mower had cut it.

I wanted to show everyone what a great worker I was and not disappoint my Dad, so I toiled hard all day, slinging that blade back and forth on those steep slopes.

I ignored the calls to take breaks in order to show my zeal as I pushed very hard, really hard all day.

Photo Credit: Chinmayan “The Serene Lotus Buddha in Blissful Meditation”

I Come From Generations of Farmers Who Believed In Hard Work

Nowadays, I call this the dead hero syndrome, which means to keep pushing so far beyond one’s limits to get something very challenging done.

I come from generations of farmers who believed that being a real man meant working long hours at hard tasks, such as “chopping cotton” or hoeing weeds from the fields of crops.

My Dad told me that when he was a boy, he and his brothers and sisters worked everyday from can to can’t. One of his favorite maxims was “Hard work never hurt anybody.”

I now know this is simply not so, as most of my life I followed in his footsteps of being a man who worked hard everyday.

Photo Credit: Chinmayan “Our Meditation Garden with Serene Lotus Buddha starting to look good after our work”

The Consequences of Pushing Too Hard

After that first day with the sling blade, when I spent many hours cutting grass, I won the praise of the crew and my Dad for the great work. But I had pushed too far.

That night, I got chills and a fever as the muscles in my back and arms knotted up into terrible cramps that wouldn’t stop. I couldn’t get out of bed for two weeks as my young body recovered.

When I finally was able to rejoin the crew, I was put on a big riding lawn tractor and tasked with keeping the grass cut on the shoulders of the park’s many roads.

But, even today, I still have to watch out for the dead hero syndrome.

Photo Credit: Chinmayan “Raking Cuttings In Meditation Garden”

We Definitely Over Did It The Past Two Days

While Ani was working like a focused hurricane in the Meditation Garden, I was busy with our big gnarly weedeater.

The grass in the south meadow was so thick, so tall and so tangled that it was a constant battle to cut it, even with our top of the line weedeater with its big engine and heavy duty line.

At the beginning of the day, we had agreed to stop and do more restful things after a couple of hours. That would have been wise for both of us.

But when I had done the two hours of battle, and was hot and already tired, I got caught up in the dead hero syndrome which is powered by the luring thought “let’s do just a little bit more…then a little more and why not keep on going?”

By the time I put away the weedeater, and Ani had stopped her furious pace of work, we were both utterly exhausted. So exhausted that we staggered to our chairs, looked at each other and said “that was too much work for one day, when we could have taken our time, taken breaks and taken care of ourselves.”

As my wise grandmother often said “Every mistake is a well of wisdom if you are paying attention and looking for the better way.”

You can be sure we will be wiser in avoiding the seductive dead hero syndrome when we work outside in the coming days!

Photo Credit: Chinmayan “Weeding our strawberry bed…and the bountiful harvest from just one day’s growth.”

Calligraphy by Chinmayan

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