Gardening the numinous
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George Clark (June 2002)

"Closer to God in a garden than anywhere else on earth" suggested the insurance salesman as he passed the old lady weeding her roses. The numinous old lady smiled and nodded wisely.
numen – a presiding spirit or deity
numinous – having a strong religious or spiritual quality
Origin C17 from Latin numen ‘divine will’

Numen The power of a Roman deity, the force of the word numen being ‘nodding’. It is commonly used in the classical period (1st century BCE/ 1st century CE) in cases where the presence of deity, for instance in a grove, is suspected but undetermined
[The Penguin Dictionary of Religions(1984)]
phenomena/noumena. Philosophers sometimes use ‘phenomenon’ in the ordinary sense, referring merely to something that happens, but often it’s used in a more technical way, referring to the way things seem to us – to something as we perceive it. Noumena are, by contrast, the insensible but perhaps rationally ascertainable things as they really are – things-in-themselves. (Thus the adjective ‘phenomenal’ doesn’t have the ordinary sense of ‘remarkable’.) This is a distinction that runs through much of philosophy, though the terms are associated with Kant.
[Robert M Martin (1991) The Philosopher’s Dictionary]

noumenon (pl noumena) ‘Thing-in-itself’, contrasted with appearance or phenomenon in the philosophy of Kant. Noumena are the external source of experience but are not themselves knowable and can only be inferred from experience of phenomena. Although inaccessible to speculative reason, the noumenal world of God, freedom, and immortality is apprehended through man’s capacity for acting as a moral agent.
[Pan (1979) Dictionary of Philosophy]
Thing-in-itself Something as it really exists, as opposed to as it is perceived.
[Robert M Martin (1991) The Philosopher’s Dictionary]

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804).

Thing-in-itself (from German Ding-an-sich) The meaning of this phrase is explained by Kant is his "Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics": "As the senses … never and in no single instance enable us to know things in themselves, but only their appearances, and as these are mere representations … all bodies, together with the space in which they are, must be held to be nothing but mere representations in us, and exist nowhere else than merely in our thought. Now is this not manifest idealism?" (Chap 13 Note II) Kant himself answered this question in the negative. His grounds were that he did not deny that there are things-in-themselves but only that we cannot know anything of them as they are.
[Pan (1979) Dictionary of Philosophy]

infinity in a grain of sand, eternity in an hour

Fabulous reality

"Poets develop a sharp eye to observe, a sharp ear to hear--the sights and sounds of everyday reality, the texture of the quotidian, to find "infinity in a grain of sand, eternity in an hour" (William Blake). That is, they recognize that the ordinary dramas of everyday reality are not ordinary at all, but unique, unrepeatable moments charged with implication and significance, which can be captured and revealed in language. 

Today, make a point of noting your surroundings just a bit more carefully than is customary. Watch the slush spray up from the wheel of a passing bus, the hot dog vendor threading her cart down the crowded sidewalk, the pedestrians bundled and wary, a sparrow singing on a leafless tree. Whatever you see or hear today, take special note, pause at least three times to write it down in a few sentences or phrases, as a "fabulous reality."

Then write your poem. Use one fabulous reality as the basis for the entire poem, or try combining and juxtaposing a few together in a single poem." http://www.poetryexpress.org/assign9.htm

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