Vivien Leigh and the Horn Worm

In our attempt to hold on to the illusion of control in our lives, we make plans and execute strategies in order to achieve conceptual goals.  The fear of course is if we realize that control is an illusion, we will be unable to maintain the façade and our world as we know it would crumble.  So we bolster our egoic mind and pretend that we as a separate entity are the playwright in this comedy-action-drama that we call life.  But every once in a while we are simply graced to see the larger picture of this cosmic jigsaw puzzle in which we play an infinitesimally small but vital role.

Take for instance my summer’s green thumb experiment when I planted some basil seeds that I found in the back of my kitchen cabinet.  To my surprise the “basil” plants turned out to be beefeater tomatoes!  So we switched our game plan and focused on raising a patio potted tomato plant.  The whole family helped in watering the planter and soon we saw the bright yellow flowers of our future beefeaters.  But despite our best efforts the elements and other no-see-ums  seemed to get the best of our bumper crop and we were left with a single plump tomato.

Then one morning, as I took my breakfast outside to sit in the early sun before the heat of the day caused me to retreat to  conditioned artificial air, I noticed that our little  tomato plant had a visitor.  A horn worm had located our sole survivor and was enjoying a long leisurely meal.   Where did this creature come from?  A tomato horn worm is a sizable caterpillar indeed the resulting moth is the size of a humming bird!  I had never seen such a creature before in our backyard.  How did it know there was a tomato ready for the taking?  Was this some kind of build it and they will come field of dreams?

All this while my family and I thought we were raising a tomato plant for our own device, but in the master scheme of things, we were but small players for an even smaller leading light who lived like Vivien Leigh in reliance on the kindness of strangers. No illusions necessary.