Gilles' Gardening story

Dear Fellow Gardeners, dear Traveling Companions,

It is a few days after Christmas on this side of the world and I feel the need to write and tell you a little bit of my story. To write in order to weave a little bit more of community amongst us human beings.

Homo sapiens are ‘animals of belonging’, aren’t we?

Together with my extended family, I’ve enjoyed last night one of my spiciest dishes in a long, long time: prawn curry.

Has my life been that spicy lately? Maybe yes, maybe no—as it’s essentially a question of how you look at the coin which is spinning, and which side you look at. There’s always a more meaningful side, after all, and it helps me, here in this down-vacation-time, to reflect on where I have been, and where I might go on this intriguing path I call ‘life’s mystery.’

The most meaningful and most spiritual event of the fall was by far our Art of Hosting gathering at the Kirkridge retreat center near Bangor, Pennsylvania. It was a delightful time, full of sharing and laughing, and more sharing and communing. Things happened in the circle of life that we formed amongst the thirty-two of us, and it was no exception for me, this time again. My life was changed by the circle in ways that are difficult to capture with words.

I entered the circle that Friday morning by sharing my ‘mourning of my religious identity.’ Why did I coin my introduction that way? I am not so sure, but the only thing I know is that it came from a place deep within. A place that the circle invites you to.

For more than a year, I have questioned the religious organization that had been sustaining my faith for twenty years. I no longer recognized myself in this organization, and particularly in the heavy and rigid top-down structure that allows guidelines to get spread and reach the general membership. I felt somewhat stuck and constricted in the middle of this lifeless hierarchy, having to gobble up things from above, and conveying directives and instructions in which I had absolutely no say. I was longing for buy-in, for a sense of empowerment, but the ideas I brought forward and the challenging questions I asked, up to the very top of the organization, were at best acknowledged but not heard. The hierarchy was counting on me to spread the “message of our faith” and increase membership in our area. I felt like a little foot soldier, devoid of power, when all that I wanted was to be a “general of life,” for the purpose of creating more life—not numbers.

It is with this frame of questioning that I entered the circle in Kirkridge, not realizing that I was openly sharing the situation that would set me free a few hours later.

The response came crystal clear, and did I say, with lightening speed? Possibly out that walk I took on Saturday afternoon down to the megalith park where I walked the labyrinth, or out of the supportive wisdom of the group itself; or again out of the surrounding peer leadership which is my way of addressing the world and its burning questions.

Words are not in order when you listen to the wisdom of your heart. The response was there, having surfaced from the pores of my heart into consciousness. I was going to resign my leadership position – this was not a way out, it was going to be a way into – a way into freedom, with a door wide open to the remaining questions of my life’s mission. I was going to set me free. There was no way back.

On Sunday morning, while attending Tenneson’s workshop, I even surprised myself. I was already into ‘wise action,’ having happily moved past ‘wise decision.’ It’s amazing how fast your life moves once you make the right decision—the decision that empowers your very life.

This warm winter break, in the humidity of south-east Asia, is the perfect place to read and reflect on the wide open space that lies before me now, six months into the Gardeners of Peace initiative that I willingly and heartily offered.

A quote I found in Christina Baldwin’s book (Storycatcher) prompted me to open my life to you tonight, as the world is in dire need of ‘connecting and reconnecting’ the social tissues that have been damaged by decades of neglect and abuse—abuse of the human heart, and betrayal of human trust—, leaving us with nothing solid institutionally-speaking to believe in, except, humanly-speaking, ourselves and the collective power of our hearts to make things happen.

“Story is a search for community. As we tell each other who we really are, we find the people with whom we really belong. Story brings us home.”

This sharing of mine is indeed an attempt to answer the questions that drive me, as I see it, from the future into the present:

“Who am I am, and what is my mission in this world?”

These are the questions that several forms of organized religions have tried to answer for me, and these are the questions that arise a little louder amidst this newly found freedom.

This is my story, simply told, and this is my version of being a Gardener of Peace.

So, what is your story?

Would you be willing to share it with me?

Would you be willing to share it with others, so that together we can build a community—“a community,” as Thich Nhat Hanh envisions, “practicing understanding and loving kindness; a community practicing mindful living.”


And a few final words of inspiration....

“We are all meant to shine, as children do. As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Nelson Mandela