VICTORIA — About 18 years ago, Sahasi Erven says, his ordinary day suddenly turned extraordinary.
“I had a vision to create the most beautiful place on earth,” Sahasi smiles.
If you ask what made him qualified to pursue that goal, Sahasi answers: “Anybody’s qualified to do it!”
Before Sahasi explains why, you should know that although he’d been qualified to be a carpenter for decades, it wasn’t the most beautiful building on earth he felt compelled to create.
“You can make the most beautiful place right here,” Sahasi says.
On a lifeless section of sidewalk in front of his home. With flowers.
“I knew nothing about gardening. Nothing!,” Sahasi laughs. “I just knew photosynthesis occurred. That’s it!”
So, Sahasi enlisted the help of friends and neighbours and transformed the small, barren boulevard between the sidewalk and the street into a bounty of blossoms, which — he says — helped the neighbourhood blossom into a more joyful place.
“That’s my raison d’être to just give joy to the world,” Sahasi says.
While he spends almost 1,000 hours a year caring for his garden now, you should know that Sahasi is a former triathlete, who says he’s run across Canada, and cycled across 48 U.S. states.
“I don’t get political about it, but we want to stay as Canada,” Sahasi says. “It’s not a 51st state.”
So, while Sahasi waits for the thousands of bulbs he planted to bloom, the green thumb has expanded his garden to the other side of the sidewalk and arranged hundreds of red and white flowers in containers to form a large Canadian flag — to cultivate gratitude for here and counter conflict with elsewhere.
“You don’t want to fight when you’re filled with joy,” Sahasi smiles. “You just want to feel good and do good things.”
Which is why aspiring to make this the most beautiful place is not a competition for Sahasi, it’s an invitation. To not just make one place great again, but inspire all of us to make every place feel, for everyone, like the most beautiful place on earth, perennially.
“We’re all qualified,” Sahasi beams. “We just have to go out and do it!”
