Lessons on Spiritual Partnership learned in the garden

     Gardening has taught me many things about spiritual partnership over the years. The very basics are simple. I must be present. We have a clear agreement, the plants and I. I care for their basic needs, make sure they get enough sun, water, and nutritious soil and they in turn produce beauty, oxygen, flowers, aromas, medicines, and food for me and my loved ones. Plants very quickly let me know when i have neglected them. Either they become overgrown, develop inedible fruits, stop blooming, droop, develop spots, mold, loose their leaves, or even die altogether. I have learned to hear their language and attend to their needs. Some phases in a plants life require more attentive care. Seedlings need sustained attention to get them established to grow on their own. Other phases happen all on their own, and as I follow the natural rhythm of things, my job as a gardener gets easier and easier.

     The agreement in a spiritual partnership with another human seems a bit more complex. But when we take a closer look, a spiritual partnership is very much like a garden. Two people come into a partnership for varying reasons. If the purposes of the two people are compatible, then the partnership can move forward with a clear agreement. The partners contribute their skills, assets, and energies, communicating their needs along the way, and a partnership grows and flourishes. If it is nourished and tended to by both partners, it can be very fruitful. If the partners are not in agreement, then the signs become very clear and the partnership very quickly perishes. Just like plants in the garden.

     In the garden, the gardener is very much like the masculine element in a human partnership. I would like to call this the Divine Masculine to distinguish it from the distorted and underdeveloped expressions of masculinity that are so common in our human world. The Divine Masculine embodies the highest, most universal and beneficial qualities of masculinity that are life affirming and nurturing. The gardener expresses these qualities by building and maintaining a solid structure for the garden to grow in. For ease in writing I will use the pronoun 'he' to refer to the gardener in the Divine Masculine, though, as we know, women embody Divine Masculine qualities all the time. The same is true of men embodying Divine Feminine qualities. (I will use the pronoun 'she' later when I write about that). The gardener builds trellises, raised beds, fences, compost piles, paths, etc. The Divine Masculine plans where to plant things and at what time and how far apart based on an understanding of the nature of the plants involved. He adds nourishment to the soil based on information provided from the plants and how well they are growing. He is in touch with what they need, with their nature, taking their messages of distress as signs to take some different action. His work is not constant. He works and rests. He sometimes works a great deal, and then stops and lets the Divine Feminine grow at her own pace. Much of his time in the garden he spends watching, listening to what she needs and responding appropriately.

     Now the Divine Feminine works all the time. She is in the constant flow of life force energy in the soil, the compost pile, the plants, the seeds, the weather changes, the sun, the moon, etc. She makes an agreement with the gardener to respond to his loving attentions in the contained space of the garden with a much more abundant and nutritious crop than would be possible out in the untended wilderness. Within his structure and care, she can produce tramendous fruits, colossal flowers, and potent medicines for his benefit. She gets to fully explore her potentials of abundance. She is in the water flowing everywhere, and with the structure provided, she can flow directly to where she is needed. She is in the life force in the seeds, waiting for the right conditions, always ready to sprout and begin the growth process. She is in the roots reaching down, finding pathways through the soil, absorbing nutrients and moisture, breathing and growing. She is in the sprouts pushing up towards the light, every cell yearning to kiss the sunlight, drink the rain, breathe into the spark at her core and light the fire of growth. She flows completely into the tips of the vines, the edges of the leaves, the body of the fruit, the fertility of the seeds. She flows to the utmost limit of the resources provided to her, pouring every ounce of life into creating her flower, fruit, seed. Only the earth moving out of range of the sun can stop her. And even that doesn't stop her because when the leaves wither and die, they just become food for her precious seeds. She gets busy decomposing, turning everything into resources to feed the seeds when the earth moves again and the conditions are right. She never rests.

     In natural ecosystems, particularly climax ecosystems like the old growth redwoods, the Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine energies are in perfect balance. It is a palpable state of divine beauty. These systems are models for us in our partnerships with plants as well as other humans. These systems are the instruction manual for how to live an enlightened life, how to partner with other living beings for the highest, most divine experience of all.