Since 2017, I have been on a mission to beautify our New York City building and change negative behaviors like vandalism, litter, and dog owners’ misbehaviors. I have written about my work on my website, rutas-rules.com. The most recent blog is “Signs of the Beautiful —Celebrating Hope.”
Aside from creating beautiful gardens with our small building staff, I also made unusual curb-your-dog signs. I use quotations of famous writers and most times add an appropriate comment at the end.
My blog, Curb Your Dog Signs – Signs of the Beautiful, explains my research about the psychology and neuroscience of behaviors addressed in this project. You might read that first. The sign project expanded to include messages about the environment, animism, the benefits of trees and plants in the urban environment, and a call to help the world. In recent years, I adopted various new additional themes. In 2023, it was Hope.
I arrived at the Hope theme when I found myself feeling the widespread hopelessness about climate change. Despite our recycling and pro-earth changes, it seemed we were getting nowhere. Larger forces like government (or lack of one) and big corporations seemed to hold all the cards. I knew, however, that if we gave up hope, change would be impossible.
Dealing with the Impossible
It is not easy to manage seven urban 10-by-5-foot tree beds for every season. The spirit-matter divide causes a disorder in Western culture. Scientists make use of the divide, but it permeates our culture and makes us feel separate from everything around us. People act as if their actions on the semi-public-space sidewalks don’t affect themselves.
“‘Compassion is the radicalism of our time’ — the Buddha” was of my first signs challenging this divide.
Meeting the Challenges of the Urban Gardener
We are still dealing with oblivious dog walkers who don’t curb, the few dead rats, a drunk who slept the night in one bed while his friend vomited in the next, a fraternity after-party ripping out mums and throwing them in the street, and the occasional plant thievery.
A couple of years ago, a lady walking through the neighborhood picked our red Holiday berries, arranging them in a bouquet as if our gardens were a store. She didn’t have enough, so she returned the next day. My husband ran after her as she went to the bus stop but stopped himself short. He was afraid she would hand them back to him and he would have to touch them.
As a scientist, my husband knew of the plethora of pathogens in animal waste, human vomit and decaying rats. [1] I half-jokingly wanted to make a sign that warned people that if they must steal our plants, they should at least visit their doctor and get gamma globulin and tetanus shots.
Enough of the negative. I keep going with our project because it gives me hope.
Someone once told me that you can’t define hope. Perhaps that is true. Undefinable —maybe. Understandable — totally. We know hope when we feel it in our hearts.
So please find our signs celebrating hope. Sorry if they look blurry. They are seen outside quite clearly, but it is hard to photograph them. The glaring sun creates distortions or shadows on the laminate. For your convenience, I have repeated the sayings in the captions.
Signs of the Beautiful – Celebrating Hope
Footnote:
[1] Since COVID, the number of feral cats has increased. Someone in the building next door takes care of one of them. This has made a great difference to the last flower bed near the garbage bins. Rats used to tunnel under that bed and disrupt roots. They would eat certain flowers. Thanks to “Kitty,” we no longer have that problem.
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There are two parts to this website, The Lessons, which are more difficult in concept, and the blogs, which are lighter in nature. Blogs that you might enjoy with the same theme are:
Beauty Heals in Troubled Times – Signs of the Beautiful
Making Curb Your Dog Signs- Signs of the Beautiful
A Lesson that relate to this blog is:
Towards a Philosophy of Decorating, Lesson IX, Part A
Please note that my website allows you to leave comments at the end of the blogs but not at the end of each lesson. If you have a comment or question about a lesson, you may email me at ruta@rutas-rules.com
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