Beyond the Garden

I cherish my plants. The bamboo and little cypress and bonsai trees and the plants outside that greet me each morning.  As I tended the bamboo I heard the whisper ‘Beyond the garden.’  I left the house shortly afterwards and sat on a rock sitting 10,000 feet above the earth pondering the whisper.

Gardens are to be cherished.  But at some point, for me, they become a metaphor of life.  I carve out a little piece of my full spirit, make a garden, and call it me.  The gardens we create let us feel needed, we tend them, they can even make us feel important, even let us feel in control and the tiny piece can even bring joy.  But I am not called to live in a carved out garden, a sliver of myself.  Called to go beyond the garden and fully awaken my expansive soul. Perhaps that is why nature calls so longingly and strong.

‘Look and see! Cherish your gardens, your niches in life, but they are only reminders of how much awaits, how big your spirit is and your heart. Cherish and tend your gardens, honor, compassion, and gentleness.  But they are not you as you were meant to be.  Do not be satisfied with one plant one piece of yourself you call your own when all of this, all of you is waiting for you to answer the call. Beyond the garden my child. My little one, beyond the garden the bounty of your full self awaits. Step out, step out and embrace the calling in your heart. Beyond the garden. Beyond the garden my child, You await.’  

Standing on top of the rock I realized if anything in the world breathed the quintessence of the will to live it is nature.  Stretching my arms out, face to the wind,  I shouted “Alive. Live. A Life. Life. Life lived.”   

Walking the path back to the car, still breathing the wind, the ever present doubt whispered, ‘Dark days will still overwhelm you, you know.’  Stopping I placed my hand on a tree and whispered back, ‘Perhaps.  But I have stepped beyond the garden and hung onto the wind.’