I meditated the other day and asked whatever Universal Awareness is out there to bring me insight. Nothing is particularly wrong with life in this present moment, but there is just a feeling of being unsettled. Like knowing that a sink-full of dishes needs to be done or that a pile of laundry has accumulated in the hamper. Nothing earth-shattering, but a feeling of needing to deal with… something. Hence asking for insight.
I get comfortable, take a few deep breaths, and am transferred to a garden. Or what should have been a garden…
It is a beautifully cultivated piece of land. Perfect soil free of weeds and rich with nutrients. There are some oddly placed trees… old ones. Other trees, perfectly cultivated and trimmed, grow strong and provide the right amount of protection for the soil below from the bright sunshine. And then there are a couple of older, gnarled, and wild looking trees that are actually a hindrance to some sections of the garden. The fact that nothing is growing around them isn’t surprising to me. There is no light, no airflow, and no space… I can barely see around into the shadows of these trees. They are a decent type of tree, just neglected and misplaced and allowed to cast great shadows and hinder access to great amounts of nutrient-rich soil around them. How it isn’t an area full of weeds is beyond me. It must be quite inhospitable.
I stand and contemplate the walled off earth that is my garden. (My garden?) It reminds me of spaces that I have experienced in southern Germany- old cemeteries. Walled off, abundant with humidity, nutrient dense moist soil, and protected from wind and harsh rains by trees. Peaceful and serene.
This garden is mine. This garden is my inner experience.
The strength of this realization forces my meditative self-not-self to sit down hard.
I don’t know how I know it was my inner experience made manifest, but my meditative realizations often hit me like this. As usual, full and complete experiences demanding deconstruction, investigation, and the beginnings of understanding.
This garden. My garden. How? I just know.
The walls are my protective barrier to the outside world. Some trees are ancestral- ancient compared to the wall. True pillars of a time past. The ground is well-tended, and the nutrients come from mulched and composted growth, but in the present moment there is nothing small… All that stands are those trees. They almost blend in with the scenery. But there is no vegetation besides. The humidity suggested an abundance of moisture to water and grow from, the sunlight is abundant, except in those spaces with the wild and unkempt trees. It isn’t that nothing would grow, it’s that nothing is currently growing.
I see a tiny seedling bursting through the soil. Instinctually, with a deft and practiced hand, and with a sense of inner horror because I can’t stop myself, I pick it. I stare at it in my fingers and wonder what it would have become? Was it a weed? Was it a great and beautifully flowering bush? The Universe knows, but I never will.
Have I been doing this for a long time? There are a couple of beautiful trees that are well cared for and well maintained, and I understand them to represent the stable and beautiful things that I have cultivated: my husband, my daughter, my home, my (now deceased) dog. Long term investments that are flourishing and adding beauty and security to my garden. Keeping it from being scorched, or overpowered by water or wind.
The old trees are aspects that are embedded within my physical body that came from ancestors and times past. Trees that my family or humanity planted in order to survive. Are they in appropriate spaces? No. Are they species of trees that I would have chosen? No. Are they tended to or cared for in a way similar to the rest of the garden? No. Some are tended to minimally, but some are neglected, and besides neglected, they are avoided and ignored. The earth around the bases is maintained, but the actual trees themselves are not. The parts that had grown fast and thick then died need to be pruned back. The shadows and crevices that those great and hardened branches cast are impossible to get to and to clear out. What unconscious effort had I put into avoiding/not avoiding these trees?
The beauty of these old trees is in the fact that they probably never were actually beautiful- it seems they were always tough and functional. They were always dominant on the land they stood on. They always were meant to be tiptoed around and safest dealt with by avoiding them outright.
So many trees.
I sit and contemplate. I am proud of the way that I had tended to the garden despite not being aware of it. Those trees are so well maintained and cared for- the younger ones that were deliberately placed would make the most seasoned arborist proud. Look at the beautiful walls. Look at that nutrient-rich dirt. Look at the potential offered by this semi-curated space. All masterfully, albeit, unconsciously done.
But this is not meant to be a forest or even an orchard. Nor is it meant to be a field of soil. This is meant to be a multi-layered garden. The mid and foreground are missing.
I recognize that there is so much more to life than the big things. The big things definitely anchor the entire structure of the inner garden, but what about the smaller parts that define and create beauty and detail? The details. I look at the ground and recognize parts of the soil as a mulched compost. I recognize a branch here or there as having been something… a bigger something.
I am suddenly aware that everything that was cut down and mulched into dirt is part of my past experience. I still hold the tiny seedling in my hand and wonder what else comprises the ground beneath me. Yes, it is nurtured, loved, and well-tended earth, but completely devoid of character, of definition beyond a garden of established trees and ‘potential.’
Potential that I keep from being besmirched by anything good or bad.
I feel a sudden pull to act. I look at these gnarled old trees with their thorns and their massive shadows keeping parts of the garden in darkness. I approach and ask them for their seeds- for their purest and most concentrated selves that existed before the world twisted them and made them hard, tough, and impossible to maneuver around.
To my surprise, they start crying. For all of their toughness the old trees are genuinely afraid of the present moment. Their size, their strength- surely getting outright rid of them would cause chaos, they bargain. Where would I hide when the storms came? Because they always do. Maybe those new and younger beautiful trees are good on good days, but when things get tough? Best to hide under the old standards- the trees built like bunkers are what’s going to save you. The trees that could shred enemies that find their way into the garden with the intent to destroy it. They plead and beg and curse the fact that the previous landowners had just ignored them and the land surrounding them. They had been left alone so long and had to protect themselves from vermin and weeds. The soil had never been so good or nurturing as it is now. And by keeping everything away from the trees, there had been no need to grow new thorns and branches. Upon inspection, I find the trees are actually growing new and functional leaves with elaborate and ornamental patterns.
I ponder.
I ask if the trees remembered why and how they had been planted. They explained that the fields were once fallow- barely tended to by previous generations. Allowed to simultaneously be all and nothing at the same time. They just grew where they were rooted. Eventually they started to be more fearsome and menacing than all the rest of the shrubbery. The nutrients flowed towards them and the smaller burdens of life started to avoid them. In bad times they were the steadfast pillars of the space, in better times they grew even stronger and more rooted. They had seen the best of the best and they had also seen the worst of the worst. And survived regardless, despite lack of attention. There were always smaller plants cast about the land, but they never grew for long- a generation or two. Nobody cared for and tended to them regularly, so eventually they got got. The tough trees were the things that stayed and grew and thrived.
For better or worse.
I receive seeds and I plant the spirit of those trees in spaces that are more conducive to generational growth. Places that are good for structure and protection and will hopefully be for eons to come. I intended to honor and nurture the pure Spirit of those new-old trees as I had my deliberately chosen new trees.
The old and gnarled trees and I come to an accord. I allow them to stay, but I need to prune them and inspect them clearly. I need them to open and relinquish the exhausting shadowy spaces so that I can move in and grow lovely and wonderful things even there. They are strong and they are powerful, but they can’t dominate the entire space. They can’t force me to care for only them, either. They need to be able to eventually trust me. They need to be a part of my garden, but I am ultimately the consciousness responsible for what grows here.
“…I am ultimately the consciousness responsible for what grows here.”
This idea is so succinct and so demonstrative of what this entire meditative experience was all about. I grew up in a garden created by humanity, society, my family… It is time for me to step out and take conscious and deliberate responsibility for the space that I have been inadvertently cultivating for myself within. In the past there have been life activities and things that I have been drawn to, but for whatever reason, I had decided to clear it all out and start over again. Probably to devote myself to the big trees, the pillars… but besides the pillars, there is nothing.
I look at the space, cleared and brimming with all of the potential in the Universe.
What do I want to grow? What do I want to place into this garden of mine to make it vibrant, interesting, nourishing, colorful, and beautiful? And once I do it- will I again be tempted to cut it all down and start over? Over and over and over again? I have taken up habits and patterns, hobbies and activities. They once decorated that landscape. I wonder if they are parts of myself that still have roots. I know that there are interests that I have taken part in and that I have spent time and energy to grow within only to cut it all down and move on without recognizing the everlasting significance of it. Will it all grow back when I stop cutting down the new growth? Can I surrender and release the potential within the garden in order to allow it all to grow again? Will I make that decision and honor it?
Those once cultivated parts of my garden feel like they could have been bushes. Better than small come-and-go seasonal plants, but not huge like the trees. And as I sit and watch, before my eyes, new shoots emerge from the earth in various spaces in the garden.
I am regenerating and rendering my garden in real time.
I am afraid.
What if the plants and growth make the garden ugly to myself or other people? What if others appreciate the potential of my inner space more than what I decide needs to be there? What if I actually love the potential of my garden more than I love my actual garden? What if people see this garden and decide that it needs to be destroyed? What if I or someone else plants weeds amongst all of the beautiful things that I have cared for and nurtured so deeply?
I shift focus to the beautiful fencing along the exterior of this garden. A gate that shuts, but that can be opened to those trusted. An understanding that I don’t have to let everyone in. I don’t have to have a boundaryless garden with others free to traipse through and judge it. This is for me. This is a space that I can do with what I please. I can plant and nurture what I want, and to do so deliberately and without committee from this point forward. This I recognize is the gift of gifts.
The smaller and individual preferences take the form of the small plants. The beautiful ones. The useful ones. The utilitarian ones. The precious ones. The ones that keep other plants safe, that complement others- they go in spaces together. There are plants and bushes that grow so well under the shadows of the great trees- both the trees that I’ve planted and the older ones that I’ve examined and rediscovered beauty and relevance in. It’s a perfect intermingling of all that there is in this Universe. And I can choose! This is my place and my strength is in making the best of what I have and allowing new experience to inform new planting decisions.
When humanity ate from the tree in the garden of Eden and was asked to leave, the part that everyone misses is the fact that the apple contains seeds. The innocence, naivete, and unquestioning existence within the great common garden is not for everyone. At some point, we find seeds and go out to cultivate our own garden. There are aspects that are carried forward, because we are nothing if not experiencing life on the inner lands that our humanity and ancestors once maintained. But once we recognize that it is our time to reclaim and reinstate awareness of our own garden, we do with the space what we please. This can be seen as awakening, or growing up, or whatever transformative life moment people ascribe to when they move from being told, to being independent and discerning what is right for themselves in order to grow and mature as a human being. Ultimately the way we cultivate our space becomes our responsibility.
I return from this meditative experience with a new, clear perspective. The vividness of the inner garden I have created still remains with me and its symbolism is something that feels so deeply etched within my imaginative space. I can’t get it out of my mind.
I have been feeling like the solution to many of my issues lately would be through the cultivation and growth of a sense of strength within. With this entire experience at the forefront, I’ve been able to move into ceremony- planting literal seeds within my literal garden as a way to symbolically cultivate strength within my symbolic inner garden. The seeds I planted were a mixture of wildflowers and they were interred in a small section of cultivated dirt.
Strength for me is built around Authenticity, Devotion, Intimacy, Endurance, and Deliberate Action. Now every plant that grows in that space will represent these aspects. And for that, I am almost breathless with the gratitude that comes from nurturing awareness of this idea within me.
I am finally deliberately cultivating both my inner and outer gardens.
And I couldn’t feel more grateful and inspired.
