Lovely Gardeners,
How is everyone doing?
In response to Holly’s post and inquiry, I would like to make a separate entry and introduce a new theme.
Through Holly’s post, discussions I had with Lenore and Lucy, and exchange with a friend of mine in Scotland, a new theme, a new pattern of inquiry emerged in my life:
And this pattern is,
“How do we beautify and nurture ourselves?"
So that, by ripple effect, we can help others do the same – taking care of the abandoned portions of their gardens.
In terms of the tangible aspect of beautifying, my friend Maggie sent me a website link:
Guerilla Gardening
http://www.guerrillagardening.org/This site is about people taking initiatives in their neighborhoods to ‘beautify’ a piece of land, the corner of their streets, or a park they walk through regularly. It seems to be a UK-based website but you’ll find pictures of ‘beautified gardens’ in Germany, the US and Canada – and will be amazed at the changes (they show pictures before and after the beautification).
So, then, how do we do the same in our lives? How do we beautify and nurture the garden within? This is indeed a beautiful ‘gardening inquiry.’
I don’t have any straight answer but can certainly share my own experience, having evolved and grown in a fairly hierarchical (religious) organization where I donated a good amount of time and money for the past twenty years. I am somewhat detached of this organization now, although I am still pursuing the spiritual practice that came with the organization.
At times, without this firm ground (a structure that gives you answers when you need them – you go for guidance with ‘seniors’ whenever you need it), I feel a bit like walking in water, not really knowing where the bottom is. And I am in a state of inquiry about what will come out of this new phase, out of this muddy water, a bit unsettled as I am. But aren’t we all looking for some sort, or some amount, of certainty in our lives?
Abandonment comes and goes in many ways, in many forms. One way I can relate to abandonment is through my fear of “not having enough money.” Will I become abandoned if I don’t have money? It was -and still is- huge in my mother, to the point that she never borrowed any money, and will never do. Her savings account is her psychological security blanket. In some ways, it also serves as the mother she lost 26 years ago.
I have been aware of that same fear in me for a long time and have worked on it, successfully, through my spiritual practice, to the point that I am now learning about the opposite challenge: non-possession, and how one “cleanses herself/himself” through non-possession.
Non-possession sounds like a weird idea in the world in which we live today, where many “have made the modern materialistic craze their goal.” (in Gandhi’s words).
A few paragraphs of Gandhi’s speeches have caught my attention lately (in the Chapter: The Gospel of Non-Possession).
“It is open to the world to laugh at my dispossessing myself of all property. For me, dispossession has been a positive gain. I would like people to compete with me in my contentment. It is the richest treasure I own. Hence it is perhaps right to say that, though I preach poverty, I am a rich man!”
“Civilization, in the real sense of the term, consists not in the multiplication, but in the deliberate and voluntary reduction of wants. This alone promotes real happiness and contentment, and increases the capacity for service.”
“The highest fulfillment of religion requires a giving up of all possession. Having ascertained the law of our being, we must set about reducing it to practice to the extent of our capacity and no further. That is the middle way.”
“Everyone has a right and should desire to live 125 years while performing service without an eye on result. Such life must be wholly and solely dedicated to service. Renunciation made for the sake of such service in an ineffable joy of which none can deprive one, because that nectar springs from within and sustains life. In this, there is no room for worry or impatience.”
Where does all of this take me in terms of beautifying my own garden? Honestly, I don’t know, and this is a bit of my gardening path that I wanted to share with you today on Mothers’ Day; a day of nurturance, beauty and appreciation.
The only thing I know for sure, is that there is a cosmic pattern in the way we garden ourselves, meaning that these ‘abandonment’ occurrences and this ‘beautifying’ theme did not magically coalesce into my consciousness today to create what I am writing. They were meant to happen and there are here for a reason.
Could this reason be our own evolution – our evolution as a species?
Love from the Garden Sate!
Gilles
