■ My Secret Garden A small house surrounded by greenery in a village in Paju-si, Gyeonggi-do, where a country house is located. The house, where the front door is open all year round and the sound of birds can be heard constantly, is surrounded by a dense forest. Every morning, when Im Bong-hee (58) opens the door and comes out of her house, she feels like she has entered a secret garden. A garden without thresholds, where various flowers bloom in competition with each other each season and birds fly in and out all year round. In the garden where the forest is dense instead of a lawn, there is no distinction between weeds and crops, and everything from earthworms to moles, frogs, and crickets enter and peacefully continue their share of life and death. When she left the weeds alone, ‘nature’ invited ‘nature’ and flourished on its own, and Bong-hee also enjoys the joy of living together as a neighbor in the middle of nature. ■ Reaching out to nature Every morning, Bong-hee starts her day by making eye contact with the birds at the spring in the backyard. Bonghee named the small spring 'Splash Splash Water Garden'. Over the past 15 years, the spring has become a famous attraction among the birds living nearby. It is a healthy garden where they can sip their water, take a bath, and have plenty of food. Bonghee, who used to live in the middle of Seoul, moved 34 years ago to the old house in the countryside where her in-laws used to live, leaving the complex city. However, her wish to live close to nature was in vain, and the winds of urbanization permeated the village, and country houses were built one after another. As the farmland suffered from herbicides and pesticides, the forest gradually lost its place. Bonghee, who saw nature gradually moving away from her, vowed, 'I will not pull out weeds in my garden.' That is how Bonghee reached out to nature, and from the nature that gained new life in the garden, Bonghee also gained life. ■ We must live together to be healthy Bonghee's secret garden is not the only place where neighbors exist. On the mountain behind the village where she sometimes goes for a walk, there is a very special neighbor that Bong-hee has known for 15 years. That neighbor is the eagle owl, an old friend who flies to Bong-hee’s yard at night to tell her news. The fact that the eagle owl, the top predator in the food chain, is a neighbor is proof that the surrounding natural ecosystem is still healthy. Bong-hee, who occasionally visits the mountain to check on the eagle owl, hopes that the eagle owl will remain as a neighbor for a long time. This is because the place where the eagle owl lives is proof that humans also have a healthy living environment. ■ Nature is a teacher When the rice planting season ends in the village, Bong-hee Lim collects the rice seedlings abandoned on the ridges of the rice fields. Bong-hee plants the rice seedlings a beat late in the stone buckets placed in every corner of the yard, and Bong-hee sets a table for the sparrows, which are considered a nuisance in rural areas. This is consideration for the neighbors who live in the same house. Bong-hee always walks around the garden in a low posture. This is because there is no other way to look closely than to bend down. Bonghee learns the mind of consideration from nature that makes her kneel. 'The mind of consideration for nature is the mind that cherishes family, neighbors, and all living things' is the greatest fruit she has gained from her secret garden. Natural Human Documentary Philosophers of Nature - My Secret Garden #PhilosophersofNature #Garden #NaturalPeople