The Garden of My Being
I awoke this morning with a vision of the garden of my internal landscape, the garden of my psyche. the garden of my being.
I think that beliefs are like seeds. Throughout our lives we are intentionally or unintentionally planting seeds in the garden of our psyche. These seeds, which sprout and grow with varying degrees of success, take the form of beliefs.
I Am the Universe” My painting from 2016 shows Spirit Bear cultivating the seeds of life in his internal garden.
These seeds may be planted in us through our life experience. The experiences we’ve had with our family and upbringing. The people we’ve met and developed relationships with or the ones that we only met in passing. And any of the multitude of events that have had a lasting impact or left us with memories either favorable or not. These passing influences or profound moments shape our mind and its desires, fears and general ways of thinking about ourselves and the world around us. These can be either stifling and destructive beliefs or expansive and enriching beliefs. Many are enriching, but some are like cancers or parasites or even demons, while others are benign.
Positive and expansive beliefs are ones that affect our well being in ways that promote our health, confidence and happiness for ourselves and others. They will shape our life as well as the way we view the world in such a way that we will more readily see the good in ourselves and others. We will be more likely to gravitate to others who have this same outlook and thereby find supportive communities that uphold our views.
These healthy beliefs are our birthright. They are our normal baseline or reference point for a healthy mind. Examples are, the belief in oneself: ‘I am strong and capable. I am beautiful.’
Belief in oneself will lead to a healthier view of others. ‘There is so much beauty still in the world’ and ‘I believe people are generally good natured’. These kinds of beliefs are the roses, sunflowers and mullens of the garden; Strong, tall, bright and colorful. More of these please!
The true weeds of the garden are the stifling beliefs. Negative beliefs generally are the ones that are focused inward on ourselves, like ‘I’m ugly or, I’m a failure’ and others of this nature. If you live with these beliefs long enough you begin to see the same traits in others and develop a negative view of life. These seeds are the parasites that take control of our lives and hold us down, and they are the hardest to get rid of because their roots run deep. Often they were planted when we suffered a trauma which programmed us with a strong defensive response technique which keeps us locked into a singular destructive point of view.
A branch of this tree are the beliefs that are formed as a result of these traumas, but are focused not on us but on the outside world. Examples of these are racism and perpetual fear of a particular kind of place, person or event. People aren’t just born racist, they grow that way as a result of a trauma that has been allowed to root in and grow too large, blocking the sun and throwing a shadow over the gardens loving plants, preventing them from flowering.
Let me tell you about my garden:
In my garden I have planted some of my favorite plants, most of which are local to me in the Pacific Northwest of America. There you will find Nicotiana Rustica (tobacco), pino blanco, nettle, devil’s club, dandelion, blackberry, self heal, nasturtium, lemon balm and sword fern and many many others you might know.
Then there’s some strange plants that I am unable to identify because they are not in any book that I know of. These are species that were born of my imagination and live there only. They are unique to me and are chemically suited to me alone.
Currently my garden is quite healthy. The medicine I have made from my garden has healed me and taught me things like self-knowing, confidence and self-love. I’ve learned patience and compassion and have been given all the strength I will ever need.
This was not always the case however. Once my garden was overthrown with nasty invasive weeds that were choking the life out of my heart-centered plants. That’s a long story for another time. The good news is that although I have a hard time keeping a houseplant alive, with many years of hard work I’ve become an excellent spiritual gardener, and so my garden currently thrives.
I’m an artist, so I like visuals. Creative visualization is a powerful tool for manifesting new realities. I like to see my garden in my minds eye, imagine what it feels like to stand in. What does it smell like? What is the landscape like in and around it? Mine changes all the time depending on the day. One day it may be terraced, the next it will be flat. On Monday there could be stone archways covered with ancient vines and a fountain in the middle (how cliche) but by Friday its in the rolling hillsides of some European looking landscape with a bounty of fruit trees with bee hives in their shade, surrounded by wild flowers and deer grazing in the nearby pasture of dry yellow grass…
I invite you on a creative visualization into the imaginary world of your own inner garden:
It’s a sunny spring day.
Suit up in your overalls, throw that straw hat on your head. Go into your garden and look around. Can you see it? Can you see what needs to be done? Is it dense with vegetation, or sparse? Is it neat and orderly or is it chaotic? If you can’t quite see it, that’s normal. What’s more important is how it feels.
Now, get down on your hands and knees and start working to tend the rows of your garden. It might need a lot of maintenance at first if its been awhile since you worked in your garden intentionally.
Maybe you want to pull up some minor weeds to start with. Just a little beatification is all, nothing major yet. Save the really challenging ones (I see you buttercup) for when your gardening skills are a little sharper.
Soon it’s time to plant new seeds in your garden. While it can be hard to pull up that invasive buttercup, it’s much easier to imagine what you do want in your garden, so start there.
Close your eyes for a moment and imagine what you’d like to plant today. Is it more confidence? What does this plant look like? Does it have pretty flowers? Visualize planting this seed in the rich soil of your being, which stretches far out into the cosmos. Drill a little whole with your pinkie and drop the tiny seed into the hole and cover it with soil. Pat the earth down gently and pour water over it. Imagine the ground warming in the mid day sun, which also warms your face…
Soon a tiny sprout pushes up from the soil and uncurls, stretching its tiny leaf-arms out wide (and yawning?). This sprout has been dormant, lying in wait for you for a long time and now it is eager to get to work. With your continued attendance the little plant grows and grows, reaching up for the sun while its roots borrow deep into the earth, strengthening their hold in the garden of your being more and more, day by day.
At some point when this plant is mature, it will flower and the bees will move in to work their magic. The wind will blow through and spread new seeds of confidence throughout your garden and new plants of confidence will sprout up and grow all by themselves. Related plants will also sprout and thrive in their company as well. They will take over your garden and slowly, the trauma-plants will whither and brown as they are thrown into shadow and deprived of water and nutrients.
If you focus on the plants you want in your garden and give them your full attention, they will thrive and create unfavorable conditions for the invasive trauma-plants which no longer serve you. This is even better than weeding because when you just pull up a weed it will quickly grow back if the conditions are still ripe. And besides, planting is more fun than weeding.
Focus on what you want in your garden. Imagine your plants thriving and blooming with flowers and the bees are busy zipping about, energized and excited about all the work you have done. Your beautiful sunny garden is abundant and healthy here and now.
I like this approach of focusing on what you want rather than focusing on what you lack because trying to problem solve your way out of a situation created by your mind, with your mind, is like the knife trying to cut itself. It seems impossible. Imagining a better tomorrow is easier than trying to untangle the mess of today.
Create and cultivate this garden in your being, through intentional focused prayer, through creative visualizations like the one above, and though the sheer want to grow more contentment, freedom, strength and beauty in your life. You are the sole gardener of your own spiritual terrane and life style. No one can do it for you.
So what are you waiting for? You don’t need to wait for spring, the weather is always ideal here and the soil is ripe for planting. With bare hands, dig the earth and begin cultivating your new life. Get good and dirty planting the seeds of a better tomorrow.
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Thank you for reading this, if you made it this far. Please like and comment below if you resonate with this. I appreciate the support. Also feel free to sign up for my newsletter and browse my shop. I have much to offer including this giclee print of “I Am the Universe” from 2016, made when I was in the depths of cultivating my own internal garden.
