More on Spiritual Partnership in the Garden

       
       
         The other day I had a plan to do a bunch of fall clean-up in the garden.  This is one of my favorite tasks.  It is one that gives immediate gratification in the drastic effect it has on the appearance of the garden, as well as often a fairly large harvest of end of season crops.  It also grows the compost pile, which is one of the first steps in preparing for the next season.  The tasks involved, cutting down and pulling up dead and dying plants are very meditative and don't require a lot of thought or skill.  It is an essential part of the life cycle and I love it.  However, right now it is pouring down rain.  Now, I could put on my rain gear and go out there, get completely wet, work twice as hard, push through and get it done.  I might have done that ten years ago.  But now I have more practice in trusting that another time will present itself that will be more easefull.  The rain is a sign to me that I can take the time to be indoors and write this blog instead.
         The previous method of pushing through to complete the plan despite the signs and signals is a very common way of life with the human masculine approach.  This is why many of us end up with physical injuries and pain from sustained strain and stress.  We don't listen to the signs and messages from our bodies and from the environment because we are trained to force the goal.  This ends up creating more work for us and thwarting the goal in the end.  I have treated many clients on my massage table who end up missing weeks and months of work, bringing whole projects to a grinding, prolonged halt in order to heal an injury that had been bothering them for some time and finally got so bad that they were incapacitated and couldn't ignore it anymore.   Many of these types of experiences have taught me to pay more attention to the more subtle signs along the way and learn to care for myself on a day to day basis.  The Divine Masculine attends to the structure of the goal while being sensitive to the whole picture.  Taking care of the tools is an important job of the divine masculine and our bodies are an essential tool.
      Our minds and hearts are essential tools as well.  When I work through the pain, it is difficult to be in joy and relaxed.  I am more likely to be grouchy about my work and even rough.  Frustration and anger are more readily available.  I am rough on myself and rough on others, whether plant, animal, or human.  The Divine Masculine approach in this state is to take a pause, notice the distress signals coming from the Divine Feminine energies within us and around us.  Emotional wisdom is a Divine Feminine quality.  Emotional energies arise in response to our actions and thoughts.  The  message may not always be clear, but if we take a pause and ask what is necessary, what is really going on, and take it into consideration, we are much better off than if we stuff it down and push through.  Years of stuffed down emotions are at the root cause of many injuries and ailments.  They are also often the cause of many self-sabotaging behaviors.  My self-fulfilling fears are one example.  I am in the process of excavating from my cells years of fear energy that was stuffed down  throughout my childhood.  As children we are rarely given the tools to healthfully feel, express, and receive the wisdom of our emotions.  This is not in our societal training.  So as adults, if we realize the importance of this we must sort through these old feelings that are stored in our tissues.  We must develop new healthy habits at the same time as cleaning up the years of mess from the unhealthy habits.  It is like in the garden.  If I don't pay attention to the messages from the garden, like discoloration in the leaves, for example, telling us that there is a nutritional deficiency, and take appropriate action, the problem gets worse and worse each season until plants will no longer grow.  Then at that point it may take a long time of hard work to get back to a place of possible growth.
         These are beautiful examples of the power of natural consequences.  This is how the universe trains us.  The great Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine in perfect balance and universal harmony, always present underneath all of the imbalanced human ways that we try.  When we don't listen to the subtle signs in and around us, we eventually run into the solid wall of the Divine Masculine structure.  Like the garden, telling me to thin the boc choi that I let reseed itself.  I didn't listen and the boc choi grew very small, pallid leaves in its crowded condition.  A gentle lesson.   There is no right or wrong here, simply natural consequences.  This is a universal principle that is always present, always working.  We can look for the natural consequences of our actions and learn from them.  We can harness the energy inherent in the obstacles that spring up in our path if we see them as guidance from the Divine Gardener. 
     
       So we can relax and trust in the process of this universal principle.  Let ourselves be.  A dear friend reminded me of this recently.  He mentioned that our expectations and hidden agendas can cause harm in our relationships.  We need to just get them out on the table, write them down, make clear requests.  He requested that we endeavor to let others be.  I am very grateful for that request.  It made me look at what makes it hard for me to do that.  I have been seeing the differences between myself and my partner as obstacles and sources of conflict instead of blessings and resources.  This would be like the plants in the garden getting upset at the gardener for putting up a wall on the edge of the raised bed.  Or the gardener getting angry at the plants for being true to their nature and growing all over the place.  The truth is that in the partnership, the teamwork in the garden, the combined skills of the gardener, the soil, and the plants creates something greater that each could be alone.  If each partner recognizes and appreciates the nature of the other partner, including similarities and differences, then what used to seem like conflicts, become assets and resources.   And then we can rejoice when we run into that wall lovingly placed by the Divine Masculine to guide us back into the garden.

Woodstock

By Joni Mitchell

I came upon a child of God

He was walking along the road

And I asked him, where are you going

And this he told me...

I'm going on down to Yasgur's farm

I'm going to join in a rock 'n' roll band

I'm going to camp out on the land

I'm gonna try and get my soul free

We are stardust

We are golden

And we've got to get ourselves

Back to the garden

Then can I walk beside you

I have come her to lose the smog

And I feel to be a cog in something turning

Well maybe it is just the time of year

Or maybe it's the time of man

I don't know who I am 

But ya know life is for learning

We are stardust

We are golden

And we've got to get ourselves

Back to the garden

By the time we got to Woodstock

We were half a million strong

And everywhere there was song and celebration

And I dreamed I saw the bombers

Riding shotgun in the sky

And they were turning into butterflies

Above our nation

We are stardust

Billion-year-old-carbon

We are golden

Caught in the devil's bargain

And we've got to get ourselves

Back to the garden