If you walk along the river banks and follow the path where it takes you winding its way over and around  old logs and trickling through the beaver dams it will take you to a place where you can sit down beneath a huge  old spruce tree. The ground there is soft and brown– littered with  countless cones that squirrels have raided for their inner treasures. Colors are heightened, all shades become clearer, sharper and defined. This is a safe place. It belongs to you and you belong to it.  If you lay back and look up through the tree you will get a sense of the eternity of time. This tree has history written in its rings. Days, nights and seasons have passed by and this tree has stood here in this spot waiting for you to come. Has anyone sat here before?  It does not matter for it has been waiting only for you.  Sit in the noisy silence for a while.  It seems as you are all alone in the world. All pressures dissipate.   In this quiet time, in this shared place no words will be exchanged.  Yet there will be communication. Communication with  a companion, a companion who knows you, who knows you as no one can. There is a deep intimacy here, an understanding that has no words.  There are no need for words.   It feels as if warmth of the day is wrapping around you like a cloak.  In the quiet, you can hear the gurgle of the water , the excited mutterings of the squirrels, maybe an old cow bleating on the hillside above but continuing to listen  you can hear something else too.  At first it sounds like the inside of your own heart beating but your ears begin to hear the synchronicity of  the heartbeat of the earth ,  the eternal hum of the universe and the harmonic background of the world at peace.  This is why you are here,  this is where you belong,  this is that which you seek.  Before now,you were continually searching for something you could not define, something you could not find along the path you took. Searching for something you did not know. Like the squirrels, you have discarded piles of husks in your search.  Looking, testing and letting go, something calling you on.  Now your search is ended, for here it is , unexpectedly appearing in the quiet of your own soul, Your eternal companion.

How could you have lived your life differently when you did not know you were not really living your life?  Instead you were acting a part.  Playing a role. You weren’t really sure what the role was but you had your lines and you bravely surged forward with the unknown script. You didn’t really like the play you were in at times. Things seemed confusing; you couldn’t really understand the point of the play or your part in it. People got hurt in your play, you got hurt in your play and you withdrew farther and farther into the role.

What you do spreads out like a ripple to others and your mood becomes the mood of everyone else. What you see in others is yourself looking back at you. What you struggle with is your lesson about yourself.

But we are one Body. Just as your body is composed of millions upon millions of cells- each with a very essential and important purpose for the whole, you and everyone around you make up the body of earth. Everything is a part of the body and that is why when you harm a piece of the earth, you indeed harm yourself.  

You did not know that anything could change or that they could do so in a moment.  A moment of clarity. A moment of truth. The fog around everything in your life lifts and you are able to see finally who you really are and how you fit within the whole.

In only one moment, your life can change.  What you are you have always been, but suddenly the real you is revealed.  The you that is revealed is so much more than the you that you think you know or that you have always believed yourself to be.  Like unwrapping a Christmas present and finding a surprise gift that you have been waiting for all your life, you instantly find yourself. There it is,  the perfect gift, you – the hidden you that has always been with you but that you did not know. This new you is greater and grander than you could ever have imagined. A you without limits.  A you without neediness. A you who is certain of yourself, aware of your place in the world, assured of your importance, compassionate with others, understanding and forgiving of yourself for your part in the play you helped create.

You  understand that you are a piece of the whole, an essential part. A necessary part. The entire world -one body depends on you being who you really are. Hello!

Gratitude

Being grateful for what we have.

What do we have?  Head and Shoulder Knees and Toes and everything in between

What do we have?  Others: Friends Family Community A place to be. Someone to be there with.

What do we have?  Ability to move:   ski, run, jump, play, reach, bend, turn around, come and go

What do we have?  Six senses: seeing, tasting, touching, hearing, smelling and our gut.

What do we have?  Talking   People  Conversations  Intimacy Each other

What do we have? Feelings and Emotions:  Happiness  Sadness  Anger  Frustration  Joy  Love

What do we have? The earth, the sky, the land, the water, the lakes, our own little piece of the Garden

What do we have?

We have been given everything, yet how often we forget and focus on what we believe we do not have, how we let ourselves live a life of misery in a sea of abundance and grace.

 How often we compare ourselves with others who we think have more than us. We have what we need but we want more. We accumulate but still feel poor when we are beyond rich.

How do we bring ourselves back from the pity place? Look at your toe. What does your toe do for you in the course of one hour-what would you do without your toes? Grab a pen and make a list of all that you have and recognize that gratitude for what you do have brings you more of what you don’t.

Drink a glass of water and be glad for it. Phone a friend and be glad for you. Tell someone you love them and be glad for you.  Your life is filled with reasons to be grateful. Somewhere someone is glad for you. Your Creator is glad for you.

Sometimes we feel like not showing up. We may be a little down or things are not going our way or it just doesn’t seem like it is worth it. We want to hide away and not be seen. Nature is the medication for those times. There is always a lesson waiting to be learned right outside ourselves.
The snowflakes are falling beautiful, softly covering the ground with a soft white wrap. If we were to catch one right now, we would see its patterned snowflake shape. When we were young, someone taught us that each snowflake is different from the other, unique and perfect in its own way. We too are like the snowflakes- individual, destined to be different from each other. In our differences we are beautiful and perfect. Our fingerprints are evidence that we are each unique, yet some of us still attempt to model ourselves after someone that we emulate or imagine that we could be better if we were someone other than ourselves. We are blind to our own beauty. The snowflake is composed of water.
Similar to the snowflake we too are composed of a large percent of water. Dr Masuru Emoto demonstrated that words can affect the molecules of water. Ugly words create ugliness in the water, kind and loving words create crystalline shapes of beauty. Our consciousness is affected by words that we hear and by the words we tell ourselves. The quality of our life is dependent on both external and internal messages. If it is true that your body hears every word you say and that illness comes from the self-messages that we give ourselves, we must stop. We need to hear that we are loved and that we are beautiful and that we are harmonious, that we are special. The joy is that we do not need anyone else to say these things to us. We can say them to ourselves. Daring thought! Start in a closed room with the lights off if you have to. Tell yourself I am the best there is. You won’t be lying because you are the only one there is. You are the best you ever. Admire your body that has brought you to this moment. Wow- isn’t it fabulous. Maybe you haven’t always given it the best food, or perfect conditions and maybe you haven’t treated it well in the past. Maybe you’ve even been a little abusive and more than likely you’ve not been always kind or loving. Whatever!! That’s in the past. Start with a little appreciation and work up to total love. We know your body has been there for you because you are still here. Beautiful. Wonderful. Magnificent. Gorgeous. Spectacular. Lovely. Kind. Caring ……That’s You. The world is lucky to have you.

I am the tallest tree in the forest. My needles are the fluffiest and the best looking. My trunk is the strongest. I need all this space around me because I am the most important. I need the most resources because I am the biggest and the best. My cones are the best looking and my offspring are better than any other species here. Look at me everybody. Look at me.
I am the busiest bee around. My honey is the freshest; my hive is in the best neighborhood. I can fly circles around every other bee. My stripes are the ultimate design. Everyone admire me. Admire me.
I am the best mother moose in this country. My children are the smartest and most educated. They are the prettiest and the smartest; there is no other moose children as well developed as mine. Look up to me. Look up.
I am the most beautiful bird in the land. My feathers are exquisite. My song is so superbly superior to all the other songs. Other birds are just not in my league. Give me more than anyone else. Give me.
The world was designed with only me in mind. I am superior, I am most blessed. I deserve the best of everything and it only makes sense that others do not deserve what I have.
Can you imagine a world where its inhabitants carried on like this?
Well yes we can.
We cannot imagine the creatures of this world competing with each other like those described above, yet we ourselves have created a world where everything has become a competition and statements of superiority and greed are rewarded with the most affluence, where it is okay to view others as less than or not equal to and where those with the least humanity and concern for others are viewed as the greatest trees in the forest and rewarded with the most income.
The Garden was not created for this. The Garden was created for harmony and love and mutual concern. The Garden was created for mutual admiration and shared resources. The Garden was created that we might experience growth in inner beauty and in love. Where do you in the garden?

It seems that the conscious choices that we think we need to make take an inordinate amount of time in our thoughts when we need to make a decision. We are often of two minds (or more) when we are trying to decide on a course of action.  We lose sleep, we sleep walk through the activities of our day while we waffle this way and that way, trying to know which answer is the correct one, worrying about how to tell what the right solution will be. Trying with all our power and might to think it through –over and over as if repetition of the pros and cons will result in us knowing what it is we should do. Mostly we continue on in a circular pattern, covering the same old ground and same old internal arguments over and over again. When that fails, we draw others into our dilemma asking for their take on the situation and then throwing their answers into the circular mess.

But what if, each problem that is presented to us is an offer to trust. An opportunity to believe. An invitation to risk that there is the perfect answer and even greater risk to know that it is ours without need for us to do anything. Possibly it is just not yet the time to receive it.   Possibly if we wait, we will discover there is no need to make any decision. Life flows and doors open without any struggle. Living could be simple if we lived as a child lives- in the moment, if we lived our life as it unfolds, enjoying what we have when we have it. We would not necessarily know when the answer to our “problem “was going to come, but we would be safe in knowing that it always does come. We could be safe in a world where everything has meaning and purpose and able to sense the mystery that carries all of us. But for that to happen we would need to trust, to trust that the Garden is benevolent, that what happens is for good, that we are cared for and appreciated and important. We would have to trust that we are loved fully and completely. We would let go and trust with the innocence of a young child that everything we need will come to us.

What stops us?  Ourselves.  We use our experiences to build stories of mistrust instead of stories of supply and safety. We think we need to protect ourselves. We let the bad overshadow the good. We let fear strip away our trust. But what is done can be undone. Resolve to start trusting again. Start with something small. Experiment with it. Trust happens when you believe

There is a picture that hangs on the wall. It’s a picture of an old cabin with the setting sun reflecting on the windows as if the lights are still on. It looks so cozy and welcoming. The fall birds are wending their way across the sky but if you look more closely you see the age of the dock and the boat tied beside it, well weathered from storms and from time. The title of the picture is Passing Through. A poignant, sentimental commentary on our journey here in the garden.  
Flipping through the newspaper, I come on the obituary of someone I had never met but someone I knew second hand.  He was 92 and a line from the obit said “He predicted weather precisely by observing animals, birds , trees and nature.” For years someone I know would stop on the street to ask this old man his take on the weather and I would get to hear his predictions second hand, be able to watch for them and wonder just how he knew. Now I know, he knew the Garden and the Garden keeper, how the garden was connected to the birds and the animals and to us. He predicted what is often said to be unpredictable despite the modern technology we have today. He showed us that if we are observant we can see what seems to be invisible, the invisible direction behind all that is. He was just passing through.

All of us are just passing through and we, like this man, have been given gifts to decipher what is written in the air around us. Do you know what your gift is and how to use it? If you know what it is, do you use it?  If it were your obituary, would it tell as much about you as this man’s did? We tend to take for granted our sojourn here in the garden, lustfully looking into the future , not so much as to understand the director or to further understand life and our part in it, but more to fulfill our own wants and needs. Most often we pass through leaving only the artifacts of our existence, the  remains –old boats tied to docks. But what if we passed through like the fall birds or like this old man, watching the weather, knowing the garden we are in and  knowing that when our time here has come to an end, that we are on our way to somewhere else- another garden somewhere perhaps one that is just awakening to spring.

Memo from the Old Mans Garden  Renewal

I recently had a conversation with someone who told me “ I have discovered that I am exactly where I have put myself in life. If I don’t like where I am, then I have to decide to be somewhere different. Then I will be someone different”. Most of us are so caught up in the physicality of our lives that we do not realize that we have made all the choices that put us right where we are. We don’t like to assume responsibility for what or who we have become, perhaps because it is easier to believe that somehow everything just occurred by chance and is beyond our control. Even when we know it is possible for us to assume control, we hesitate because where we are seems safer than where we might be.

In the garden, plants do not have the luxury of bemoaning their fate or their placement in life. They grow where they are planted, they bloom in spite of adversity, and they demonstrate that life is both transient and beautiful. Their single minded purpose is to be whatever they can be.

If you look closely at trees, you can see ones that have bent where another tree has fallen and distorted their upward growth. They do not lay about concerned with how they have been stunted in their growth and espouse reasons why life is now ruined: they steadfastly continue to grow upward and onward. We too have this same ability to grow and overcome whatever obstacles have been placed in our way, but to do so we need to man up. We need to man up by being willing to look at ourselves and to become aware of what we are choosing and why. We are confronted time and time again with difficulties but these difficulties are gifts- the gifts of opportunity– we are given opportunity upon opportunity to choose again. It is only when we refuse to accept the challenge  to remain awake and aware of our choices that we become stunted and unable to grow.

Each moment we are someone new and if we do not like who we are becoming, we have only to change our minds and we can change ourselves. Others may not change but we can  be renewed/ We have the power to renew ourselves.  What in you needs to be renewed?  Your attitude, your sense of love, your heart, your compassion, your love of yourself, your outlook, your inlook? Like the plant, we are continuously unfolding, seeking to be the best of what we can be in spite of ourselves. Unlike the plant, we retain the option of choosing another way, another path to accentuate that growth. When the way we have come is not the way we want to continue, we can simply choose again. We can decide how we want to be as well as what we want to be. We can choose happiness, we can choose love, we can choose life. The choices are a limitless as the sands on the beaches. Each new choice renews our inner spirit and gives us a fresh breath of life and a new perspective.

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