Month: October 2021

In Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic, The Secret Garden, the orphan Mary asks her guardian if she may have a bit of earth.

‘Earth?’ he replies. ‘What do you mean?’

 ‘To plant things in. To make things grow. To see them come alive.’    

‘Do you care about gardens so much? A bit of earth?’ he asks. ‘Then you can have as much earth as you want. When you see a bit of earth you want, take it, child, and make it come alive.’

Which is exactly what Mary does with the help of Dickon and the old gardener.

When we nurture the seeds of meditation in our inner garden we, too, begin to come alive at a deeper level. Happiness is elusive: it comes and goes. What grows and becomes evergreen in our innermost garden is contentment.

In his book, The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle writes:

The plant that you have in your house, have you ever truly looked at it?  Have you allowed that familiar yet mysterious being called ‘plant’ to teach you its secret?  Have you noticed how it is surrounded by a field of stillness?  The moment you become aware of a plant’s emanation of stillness and peace, that plant becomes your teacher.

When we emerge from meditation we often encounter people and things as if for the first time, seeing them in their essence.  The practice of meditation leads us to a deeper and fresher awareness of all things and of each another.