Garden Wisdom

I grew up with a mom who had a wonderful rose garden, we had THE best peach tree in the world beside our pool.  Both parents tended to their parents' gardens.  Both sides of grandparents had gardens in their urban backyards.  In the summertime all the grandkids (aka child labourers) came to pick the harvest of endless beans, peas, cucumbers from rows of itchy plants and bugs.

I always figured I would live in New York, or San Francisco - some big city in a highrise.  Who needed a garden?  It was just so much work and dirty!  Jump ahead to 2001 when I fell head over heels in love with my husband.  I was, at the time, living downtown Vancouver.  He had a six acre farm in what seems like the furthest you can get away from urbanization in the Lower Mainland.  The first time I went out to his place (our current home), he had me on the John Deere tractor moving a pile of wood shavings (pretty sure now, I was being tested...)  This is one of our theme songs my husband has broken out in tune to a number of times over the years:

"Green acres is the place for me.

Farm livin' is the life for me.
Land spreadin' out so far and wide
Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside.

New York is where I'd rather stay.
I get allergic smelling hay.
I just adore a penthouse view.
Dah-ling I love you but give me Park Avenue.

...The chores.
...The stores.
...Fresh air.
...Times Square

You are my wife.
Good bye, city life.
Green Acres we are there."

So here I am out in the country, and despite missing some of my city-life tendencies over the years, I have been inspired for the better, and the deeper when it comes to moving towards "what best serves the growth of my [own] soul".  

I am a believer in the quiet moments offering us the most potential to grow - the chance to heal and become better for the hardships we face.  A parallel in nature is the period of sleep where the body not only replenishes its stores of energy lost in the day previous, for the day ahead, but also secreting growth hormones not just for growing children, but repair and maintenance through adulthood.  We rest, we settle in to our natural rhythms and give ourselves time to come back to homeostasis.  This is on a physical level.

On a emotional, spiritual level, we pray, we meditate, we rest, we mull things over, we love in quiet moments.  Even science now gives credit to the benefits of meditation: Psychology Today, MIT News  For me, gardening has become a level of meditation.  When I was young, picking weeds was excruciatingly boring!  Now, it is a simple act that connects me with the earth, that allows me the time to emotionally 'have off'.  Not only that, but there is an innate wisdom nature gives us if only we listen.  What happens in nature, after billions of years of evolution is not just dirt growing stuff.  It is not something mankind will figure out, label, understand, control nor beat in the time "science" has been around.  Human beings are not exempt from the whole our world is.  We can fiddle with nature, but sooner or later, like water, it will find it's way back to the path it is meant to be on, with humans or without.

So this year, I am STOKED about our garden!  Last year was pretty good.  We have a greenhouse, we have raised beds that my husband put his blood and sweat in to (with more to come this year).  He builds the infrastructure, I populate, maintain and harvest the garden with my trusty little side-kick daughter. 

Repeatedly, the practice of being in our garden inspires me: "There Will Be A Day..." "Poop=Fertilizer" (catchy title, right?), "Life Systems", "Day 3 & My Garden".  We see in things inspirations of what is true for us - perhaps like horoscopes... Whatever the case, no offense to anyone else, but these things ring true for me.

Why garden?

1. It is meditative
2. Gardening is repeatedly a common practice in National Geographic Blue Zones (pockets around the world where people lived measurably better...where people reach age 100 at rates 10 times greater than in the United States"
3. Gardening involves five of the nine factors of Lifestyle Habits of the Blue Zones ("1. Just Move", "2. Down Shift", "5. Plant Slant".  Gardening is also most often times communal or involves a sense of community and shared knowledge ("7. Belong" and "9. Right Tribe")
4. There is a connection to the earth and raw life (if you believe it is a gift from God, or just the flow of Life) that is rare to be found otherwise in today's day-to-day life
5. It is an art, it is a study, it is a craft, it takes investing those things towards nature with positive, respectful, innate intentions.  When you give back to nature, you are more in balance.
6.  Decrease your (organic) produce costs substantially
7. Know where your food comes from, how it has been grown, and that it still carries the maximum amount of nutrients
8. It takes caring about something and that will always benefit your spirit
9. If you have children or have them in your life, think back to your own best childhood memories - freedom in building anything the imagination could offer, mudpies, splashing around in water, the therapeutic nature of getting dirty, fresh air, no rules, learning the important lessons from life itself.  Three documentaries to watch, two of the same name: "Where Do The Children Play?"  The first below (8 min), the second "Where Do The Children Play?" a 1-hour PBS documentary by Dr. E. Goodenough for the University of Michigan. (link to website provided).  "Play Again" documentary with David Suzuki.   "What they will not value, they will not protect.  And what they will not protect, they will lose". Charles Jordan (Chairman of the Board, The Conservation Fund")  This is an investment in everyone's future.
10. It is good for the earth to plant something. 

Everyone has their own expression, their own connections with Life and Nature (I hope).  Gardening is not for everyone.  But if this speaks to a part of you, plant one thing - one tomato plant, one strawberry plant, a few carrots in a bucket - and nurture it this spring and summer.  Keep at it.  Care. Get your hands dirty, and see what things surface for you in your own quiet moments.

Next post about yet another theory on gardening/life...

Ghosts

A couple weeks ago, I was working on a contract with a great group of people.  Because the job I was on, had to do with ghosts, discussions of ghosts naturally came up.  In the readying moments before and between the actual work, I sat and gabbed with my coworkers, swapping stories and theories about our beliefs on ghosts, the afterlife etc.. Some of the stories that came up were really amazing, and some ran shivers through us all.  Why is it the mere tale of ghosts and spirits can do that?   I hadn't given a ton of thought to ghosts, though I do have general beliefs on the topic.  This job was kind of cool because it gave rise to what my thoughts really were on this topic. 

I do believe spirits exists, but not in ghosts coming to terrorize those still living.  As I've mentioned, I believe strongly in energy translating way more than science can measure and give credit for. 

There is a quote that resonates deeply for me whenever there is a passing: "A luminous light remains, where a beautiful soul has passed" by Antoine Boveua.  That is it in a nutshell for me.  When someone does pass, I believe that beyond the process of grieving (realizing an end to a life), the imprint of that persons' essence, their soul - continues to exist via energy.  Whether it is the pure love of a little one, or even a more complex energy of someone who has lived a hard life.  When we are able to process the transition of death, that energy then disperses and is carried on in life amongst those who move that person's light, memory, or even sometimes challenges in to their own life.

We, as people, invest energy in those around us every day, every interaction, and even in things around us.  The affect each person has, the energy they invest, continues on.  Death actually heightens that investment because we then get the unique significance of that specific life that we valued so much.  We learn what we have lost and will miss, but hopefully will carry on that legacy, or it otherwise will die or remain stuck.

Funerals mark a life in a kind of sad way, beyond just the process of grieving.  It makes me sad to think that all these wonderful things are said, only after the person is gone.  Did they know as clearly as we say it at a funeral, how honoured they were when they were with us?   I'd think the majority of us do not hear the Coles Notes version of that couple hour service of our own funerals.  That is why I believe it is so important to be strong and vulnerable and express what we do feel about those we love when we can.  The investment we receive every day from those around us, should be a testament to how dear they are to us.  That is something I would like to work on more.

Funerals are an opportunity for the living to mark and honour the passing of a life - to begin to process the conclusion on that life.  It is also, for me, a ceremony that brings that souls' light to the surface from various aspects of that person, so that I will honour them by carrying those characteristics forward; spreading that persons' life. 

One of the gals I was working with is of Japanese decent, so I was picking her brain (as I was researching for a character) on how she thinks Japanese culture perceives the concept of ghosts.  I had the chance to learn from her (since my family is somewhat removed from Japanese culture), a bit about Shintoism, and how it kind of lends itself to the thought of spirits and ghosts. She said in Japan, they believe funeral ceremonies are for the deceased as well, to help them understand they have passed and to help them move on too.  Interesting - maybe they do hear the Coles Notes... 

So a ghost.  How does that fit in?  When people have passed, with my ancestors, boy have I felt them close sometimes.  Do I believe that their souls are still wafting around?  Or do I believe the energy of their souls are less concentrated...?  This is where this last work project and its' discussions made me think.  When I come to the end of my days, and I do get to know all the answers, it will not surprise me in the least to know that ghosts, souls, whatever you want to call them, waft around. But I think it is me knowing that energy, that links my perception of them, to the kind of energy I am feeling. In my highest and lowest moments, I feel them there.  So yes, I do believe, but perhaps not as concretely as ghosts are portrayed.

Ok, so freaky, scary ghosts - what about them, then?  My coworker mentioned a Japanese television series that was on for a while "Messages From Heaven" with Ehara Hiroyuki, a medium who would talk to those who had lost loved ones.  One of the translations I was told about his beliefs, was that ghosts are not evil spirits waiting to seek their revenge, but rather a soul/energy just stuck.  Spirits, energy, souls, that do not know they have passed, or can not make sense of their passing if it was amidst a trauma etc.  Energy that is stuck.  It keeps reliving itself, trying to make sense of things, usually anchored by a situation, location or even other living things not being able to let them go.  Not only do I believe that their energy remains (is interpreted as 'haunting' a place), but also that it stays stuck because we, the living can't let go either.

There I said it.  I don't believe in "evil".  I believe in stuck, heartache, suffering, sadness, anger, severe frustration in not being able to move forward, or express oneself, but not evil.  Have you seen a child having a tantrum?  Is that evil?  No.  It's just a being that is so stuck and so charged with whatever emotion that it just can't make sense of it, express it rationally, or find a way to move out of it.  The child can't move forward until it makes sense of things.   That's what I believe is the case for 'ghosts' in the scary/haunting sense.

When stories of amazing, loving people are shared, their energy moves in to us and moves us, inspires us to be better, to live a degree differently.  When stories of confused, traumatized people are shared, their energy moves us as well.  I think that is why people have such a hard time with ghosts, there is a perception that 'evil' will move in to us.  Yes and no.  Confusion, sadness, anger and trauma, yes, but that happens with living people as well.  In both cases, if we understand our own foundation, and know where the other energy is coming from, it doesn't get stuck within us either.  If you are aware, and make those feelings instigate love, it turns around; moves forward. 


Where the heck am I going with all of this?  I am actually taking this a step further - yup!   I had a 'moment' when I heard the translation about souls being stuck.   It clicked with my beliefs on energy, and it reconciled my disbeliefs on evil spirits etc.  Not only that, but it clicked with where i was at: a place in life where I was awaiting news on my physical health, I was stuck, festering in trying to make my situation that had some unworkable issues -work, creating a negative energy that I just kept spinning my wheels in, hanging on to grief etc..  The talk of ghosts/'stuck energy' was parallel to some things going on inside of me as well - my own 'ghosts'.

In life, we go through trauma, through loneliness, through struggles.  Most of the time, we get through them, but sometimes, for whatever reason (lack of knowledge, support, energy, or even being tied to patterns from our past or others around us), we just get stuck and yes, we do pass it on and 'haunt' those around us with it.  Our energy is the same as that bound energy.

When someone passes, the heartbreak of the loss, the trauma of the passing, the raw demand to rebuild the future you thought was, is fresh.  It lingers, like a fog that makes no sense, that stifles and suffocates, but then we are left with the memory of a person.  The losses of those I have loved and lost, have healed because of the light I carry forward from those loved ones.  Similar thing as trauma.  We move forward from it by carrying the light of the events forward - the lessons, the strengths gained, the ability to help others.  We can't heal when we are stuck.

I know now, that there is grief I need to let go of and light that I need to work harder on bringing forward.

All of the talk of ghosts and the afterlife continued for a couple weeks post surgery in my time of waiting for results - cancer, or no cancer?  That was a interesting to deal with, but no one at work knew what was going on and I needed that.  But in the end, what I got from it wasn't just facing mortality in a really bizarre way, it was the realization of another of life's fundamental principles or Life Systems: the result of what happens when energy is stuck.

In the last day before I got my results, I was given interesting insights on ghosts etc.  But it does translate in to our own lives as well.  The places in life where I am stuck, I must see for what they are, resolve, and allow life to take it's course in moving forward, otherwise, I will create imbalance and sickness.  Life is never meant to stay stagnant.  We are meant to grow, to move forward.  Some patterns keep us from doing so and they are never healthy ones.  Being stuck should help us realize those patterns aren't working for us.

It was a powerful lesson that I needed to understand, for wellness, for love and for moving forward.

If you believe in ghosts, ask yourself what negative patterns, anger, sadness etc. you are stuck within.  Maybe it is a parallel thing.  We are all made of energy.

Keep the light moving forward!