The circle forms as they sit. One offers to gather the potion as the others settle in for what they do not expect. All of them have arrived with worry, tension, joy and monotony. Each of them carries burden, hope, hurt and loneliness. As the first drinks are sipped, a sense of ease begins to set in. The anxiety of existence slowly releases every time the glass is brought nearer to emptiness. As time wears on, the collective worries, burdens, celebrations and hurt each has brought melts into the cool night's air. A community is formed around a wooden table, on wooden benches in a beer garden removed from the swirl of sickness and sadness--from the everyday, the mudane and the hurry. Time is a component removed as the participants--now reminded of why they are friends--laugh and talk story. Conversations too important to be remembered in the morning are experienced in a unique combination of random thought, exhaled relief and imbibed drink. Spontaneous creativity comes to the fore as the conversation ebbs, flows and transcends the subject--instilling a sense of reason, purpose and value to the things left behind. A sense of renewed strength to go back when the circle convenes.

Community? Maybe too strong a word. Fellowship? A bit too much baggage. No, let's leave it at friendship. Let's leave it as a group laughing, smiling, sharing, trying, hurting and most of all being. Shared space. Shared existence. Shared breath. A fleeting moment never caught nor verbalized. A smile wrought from the depths of the 'sickness unto death'. A glimpse of why gardens were created in the first place.

In the technocracy and de-mythologized existence we have created, for those lucky enough, this is the closest return to the Garden we might ever experience.