Welcome

In the center of our recent ‘circle’ (Gardeners of Peace conference call, Sept. 29, 2007), we could sense a deep desire for a community of heart-centered people who are alive, awake and able to connect on an essential level, with the ‘gardener within’ and together as a developing community. It is from this ‘opened space’ that the collective wisdom, heart and spirit will continue to grow and take shape. The Garden (Gardeners of Peace) provides the 'vessel' in which this growth will emerge, expand and ultimately bear 'fruits' of all kinds, and where you are invited to reflect privately or aloud with others.

You may ask, “What is this Gardening all about, and what is in it for me?” Please realize that only you have the answer to these questions, and only you know how to contribute to make this world we live in a better place. No one among the Gardeners is here to tell you what to do.

We hope that you will find meaning in these few lines of introduction, as well as in the invitation, and that you will feel called to join us in our active search for peace, in our active gardening of our lives and of our earth. Gardening can be a very meaningful activity and a potent metaphor – and a very simple one as well. It is an activity that allows us to reach and tap our deepest identity: human beingness.
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Monday, April 21, 2008

abandoned garden

Below are images of an abandoned garden I have been walking to of late. The old Florida mid-rise in the background is where I live. I walk through the neighborhood on my side of the river, cross a drawbridge (just to the left of the photograph frame) and through the neighborhood on the opposite bank to an open lot whose former house has been leveled.

Walking there has been emotional on many days; sitting in a space not my own and untended has allowed a lot of shadow and even pain to emerge in me. This has resonance to some of what has been surfacing that I have not voiced on our calls and in receiving the invitations sometimes.

I want to share with the group some of that experience, and know I will benefit from like-minded 'gardeners' on this process; yet I thought first, instead of just hurling out my story, MY etc., I would like to hear your thoughts and reactions to viewing these images.

(My apologies for the over-exposure in the middle image; my Photoshop program has been corrupted somehow and I am awaiting a replacement version.)

What do you see?

What do you sense in this place?

Does it activate a desire?

How do you imagine you would feel standing there by the river in the brick frame, on the sandy Florida soil, between the loose weeds, in the sun?




abandoned garden along Ortega River, a large tributary off the St. Johns River, one of the few rivers that travels south-north


Thursday, April 10, 2008

Phone Council Podcast - March 30, 2008

Please click here to listen to the March 30 Phone Council podcast.

If you have any difficulty downloading the file, right-click on "here" and select "save link as..."

Many thanks to everyone who participated and to those of you who made this podcast possible.