Precious child asked Grandmother, “What does it mean to reweave your life?” Grandmother answered, “Unlearn your old harmful ways. Garden the stories you tell yourself. Allow beauty to run like a river through your soul again. Permit peace to graze your heart. Drink the rain. Savor the sun. Love like Love loves.”
Jaiya John~ Fragrance After Rain
My initial grief container needed to be small as anything too expansive I would have felt the need to fill every crevice. With what I am unsure, yet that deep knee jerk reaction of doing would have been mine. I was like a young, tender seedling which required a pot which was mostly a snug fit to learn how to BE with this new reality I found myself within. I could not allow my very limited life force energy to creep into places I was not ready for yet.
I was going to need to feel perhaps a bit root bound for a time, maybe even crack my pot, before I felt safe and secure enough to replant myself into what was going to be my next vessel. I wasn’t even sure what I might be in need of, yet something kept reassuring me to trust the process and so I did.
Following my Al-Anon slogans that were in my tool kit were my vital nutrients, my water, sunshine, shade and rich soil.
First things first
Just for today
One day at a time
Keep it simple
These slogans kept me rooted, grounded and prevented me from completely drying up and withering away when it might have felt easier to do so. I was learning perhaps for the very first time to drop into my body to ask her what she was in need of? A walk, a nap, a drink of water, reaching out to someone who could hold space for me so that I might hear myself into healing with or without the use of words. Those kinds of things were what I was learning how to lean into as I tended to my inner garden.
Presently I find myself in a lush and dense forest. Among all kinds of trees and foliage, communicating to one another using a deeply rooted underground network, providing shade, respite and leaning into these words during this season shared by an anonymous writer. “The trees are about to show us how lovely it is to let the dead things go.”
Am I able to do what trees do naturally each autumn? Allowing the dead to fall away so that it creates room and might become the hubris for that which awaits?
Longing for smaller containers at times when a sense of overwhelm might be settling in is a choice for me. Simple is needed at times and allows me to zero in on the first voice I need to be paying attention to, mine. The forest beckons me as it reminds me that I’m one of many and that together we are stronger, our roots becoming deeply intertwined and that we belong to one another.
No wonder I find myself in my garden often, tending to it and finding such delight with the colors, the textures, the bees buzzing about and landing on our heather plants. My time also includes wrestling with the invasive vines that can become out of control and the weeds too if I’m not paying attention, watchful, clearing, untangling, creating space for new growth. It so closely mirrors what caring for my inner garden requires.
I am unlearning, reweaving and allowing nature once again to be a faithful gardener and life long teacher. Thank goodness she is so forgiving and starts to perk up and even exhale with just the tiniest amount of attention given her way. I’m just like that, aren’t you?
Comentarios