Patience

One of the things I like best about gardening is that it demands patience. While there are ways to speed along germination, fruiting, and rotting, plants have their own time and it does not sync with your Palm Pre/iPhone/whatever. It's biological and ancient. They will not be hurried or cajoled.

For example, this fig tree cutting. I'm told it will root...in about a year. First it will shed its leaves and seem dead, and we will wait. Then some time in the future-- the post grad-school future where I am starting out my highly successful career as guest lecturer and artist shaman-- the fig tree will put out roots. And I will sing and dance.

If it doesn't root-- if what seems like dead, is dead-- that will be the future just as well.