By Jean Ponzi
Great-ness
On June 13, 2026, I joined the Celebration of Life for Dr. Peter Hamilton Raven held at Missouri Botanical Garden, the dearly beloved place he led over nearly 40 years. A roomful of 500 souls (plus Zoom viewers worldwide) gathered to remember and appreciate the works and relations of one human – widely, publicly considered Great – on the day he would have turned 90.
Peter Raven’s garden is my place too, where my environmental career took shape and deepened into vocation: teaching about and speaking for Earth. I’m grateful to have known him with real exchanges of personal regard.
I went open to absorb the nature of Great-ness, with intent to both practice and share what I’d learn. I knew I would hear distinguished achievements through worldwide connections, storied service amplified by longevity.
As a student seeks a great teacher’s guidance, I went in trust of clarifying focus on my path, boosting light through toxic times that commodify “celebrity,” dismember Respect with ridicule, and slap a “great” label onto greed and cruelty as power.
I knew I could welcome the spirit-seed released when carbon atoms that make up a life are dispersing, to help all who Peter’s greatness touched garden the kind of world we want to live in, and to leave.
A world where Great grows good, well and truly, for all.
It’s funny that Greatthe wordmeans way less than you’d think. From medieval European culture and language, Great is just about . . . being big.
Like Great Blue Heron, the larger of two related water birds.
Or Great Neck, the wide point where Long Island juts out from New York.
Big is, frankly, not that big a deal on a planet where the Biomass of Insects is collectively bigger than the combined weight of ALL humans and wild mammals, including elephants and whales. That tips one big scale toward very little beings – even while we’re greatly overpowering them.
Peter Raven was a Botanist who got a great big head-dude job when he was only 36. He cultivated a middling, midwestern public garden to become a Great, global force for plant-science knowledge, conservation skills applied in restorative practice, and capacity to care about why all this is important.
He was a leader who fostered leadership in others. He worked through professional circles, cultural and political networks and his own Garden staff, volunteers and contributors. He deserved and took great leadership credit, but Raven did not hog that glow.
As I listened, I took notes:
Leadership lifted everyone
Encouraged our sense of purpose
Brought out the best in others
Wanted to understand perspectives
Shared knowledge freely
Brilliant and FUNNY
Cultivated connections toward care for the common good
I heard eminent persons from big-name places around our world honor how his delighted curiosity respectfully met and listened to students and ordinary people in his myriad audiences as attentively as Presidents, Popes and an Emperor.
Not all big, but Great stuff for sure.
So what word do you think leads in my notes? Over 14 pages recording tributes, the Great Man of Science – discoverer, authority, innovator, instigator, mentor, director, Hero of the Planet – was remembered most often for his great Love.
Love of family. Love of plants and learning. Passionate, driving love for Nature fused with great conviction that we humans (cause of problems, he knew) can learn to care for (not destructively plunder) our precious Earth, to care for all beings and communities and our own kind, when we Understand and Love.
From a recent video interview, Peter Raven spoke the last words in his Life Celebration: “Our only purpose in living is to love and help others.”
Thanks, Dr. Raven, for deeply rooting Great-ness in our fragile, resilient world. I’m one in loving legions who’ll continue tending Great Beauty from your life’s seeds.
In the photo from 2010, Jean Ponzi interviews Dr. Peter Raven (1936-2026) as the volunteer host of her local talk show Earthworms, from KDHX studios on Magnolia Avenue.