The Spiritual Gardener

Who doesn’t want their yard to be a lush paradise? Many people dream about going on vacation to a tropical paradise where the vegetation is naturally lush. Some people dream about retiring and living on a tropical island in the Caribbean or Hawaii. But why wait till you go on vacation or retire? Why not create your own paradise now in your own yard? Well, you may say, sure, but not clear about how to go about creating one.

One person’s idea of paradise may not be the same as another. For instance, you may have grown up in the mountains among pine trees and lakes and your idea of paradise is to reclaim that feeling you had when you were a child and had no cares or worries.  Read more... (1126 words, 1 image, estimated 4:30 mins reading time)

The Secret Garden by Francis Hodgson Burnett written in 1911 provides a good source for anyone wanting to learn how a garden can transform one’s life. It is overflowing with metaphors and symbolism that teach lessons of spiritual growth and healing by paralleling the lives of its characters with the ‘life’ of The Secret Garden.

The characters are wrought with childhood wounds, suffering neglect, abandonment and otherwise emotionally discarded. Feeling unloved by their parents and no friends with whom to find comfort, they become bitter, ungrateful and very selfish. Thus the emotional state of many a human throughout the world. These emotional wounds eventually become the deep-seated fears believed true and which shape our thoughts of ourselves and factor into our behaviors. They are secret thoughts, hidden in our subconscious.  Read more... (865 words, estimated 3:28 mins reading time)

The spiritual-human duality dance creates an inherent sense of tension in our minds. Those who tend to resonate with the ideology of selflessness and letting go of the ego  understand that a life centered on having material possessions is not in the end, fulfilling. The ideal mind would be to experience materialism without attachment.

We often hear the phrase, “You are a spiritual being in a human body”.  But this begs the question, what is it to “be” spiritual versus being human? This is where we get confused. It’s our meaning of what we consider the terms ‘spirituality’ and ‘humanness’ that we have not fully reconciled.  Read more... (947 words, estimated 3:47 mins reading time)