From conflict to Unconditional Love. SR.
I was playing this morning with my favourite theme of the inner garden. When I was a little Simone, I would sit in the garden for hours and stare at things, grass stalks, ladybirds, water, clouds, the wind in the trees. trees. Hmany of you remember the hours drifting by in an eternity of joy, somehow disappearing into a world where you forgot yourself completely? I forgot the noise of the outside world, in my house, often the chaos and the conflict.That memory will be there somewhere. I built tiny huts, tiny buildings, tiny chairs, tiny fairy gardens. Little bits of sand for the tiny people to eat.. little dollops of clay for the population of my tiny world to sit on if they came to chat. As I grew up over the years so did my creations. They seemed to get larger, more complex, out in the world, sometimes remote. But this little world of the tiny garden, the zen garden fascinated me and has been the wellspring of great healing which is why I want to share it with you.
The virtual quiet garden which is the inspiration for this page is about what happens when we dwell deep. How the cultivation of the soul garden invites love, God and others to companion with you both inside and outside with no division. There is a great space which is mysteriously and confusingly but unifyingly between all things which seem in total conflict. But that charged and yet peaceful space between our challenges, decisions, judgements, guilt, shame, mistakes, is where liberation dwells. And it is precisely what we call ‘the negatives’ which take us into the space of wholeness and unconditional love. In fact it is only through the wounds of life that we can enter that divine garden. We can’t bypass it no matter how upbeat or positive we are, or how many spiritual books we can read in a lifetime. I call this the keyhole experience. The moving through all the barriers which we have created to return to that inner garden of unconditional love.
Something in us as children knew that we would not find that completely in the world because we were already born with it. For many of us, like me, we lost that knowledge,our only task and true happiness is to find that again.
I recently watched a beautiful interview with joyfully childlike Icelandic singer Bjork and Estonian composer of sacred music Arvo Part. I was struck by how Bjork described the voices in his music as Pinocchio and Cricket, and how Arvo Part responded acknowledging the understanding between them of his deeply subtle, transcendent music. The inner child speaks to the adult. The adult loves the child, the child loves the adult. The child recieves the wisdom it has forgotton. The adult can through the child give the wisdom it too has forgotton, but now can regain through the conversation with the child. The child knows, the adult has experienced. They can become whole and move together through the miracle of life. The child is still within us and can lead us to ourselves again.
The great unifier in all this is love, God, Universe, source. In great hardship we can turn inside, still ourselves to find the still small voice which is ever enduring and loving. Where we need be only our true selves.
I feel after writing this inspired to make a small inner garden with my daughter. I invite you to make one for yourself or with your child as a living meditation. And would love to hear your shares.
With love, Simone
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