Heart of the Garden

A number of years ago, I read a book called Night Gardening. It was a delightful love story about a late in life romance started by the couple's mutual passion for gardening. One of the things the gentleman said in regards to gardening has always stuck with me.

"With real gardeners- ... -there was usually one place where their soul and that of the garden's met. The step gardens were that place for her."

I have found this, over the years, to be true about a number of things. A small grain of a thought will take root in your mind and from that single point, things will begin to take shape. You may dance around this heart a thousand times trying to convey it without realizing. But there it is.

Here is the kernel to which my philosophies started from. Describing it takes a bit longer, but I need to give you the basis it came from first.

Jacquelyn Carey created a pantheon for her Kushiel's Legacy series. Elua, the head of this pantheon, is born from the blood of Yeshua bin Yosef and the tears of the Magdalen. In the world's history, he is joined by eight angels and travels the world preaching one message. Love as thou wilt. He is eventually approached by the One God's Host to join his grandfather in Heaven. Elua's response is this:

"He scored the palm of his own hand and where his blood fell on the earth anemones bloomed. Elua refused saying, 'My grandfather's Heaven is bloodless and I am not. Let him offer a better place, where we may love and sing and grow as we are wont, where our children and our children's children may join us, and I will go.' "

Many religions offer a place of salvation for the afterlife. Somewhere we will go that all will be well. No suffering, no injustice, no harm. Where one will be rejoined with all that they've lost whether that's people or understanding or enlightenment. Where we can join in the chorus singing praises to the Divine or contemplate the steps we have taken along our road to enlightenment.

The catch is, it's the afterlife. This life, we are told and taught, is full of suffering and injustice and that is simply the way it is. Just get through this and all will be well in the end.

The lesson I took from Elua is such: We are mortal. We are blood and bone and sinew. We have wants and needs and desires. We may have divine influence in our life, be it blessed as a chosen follower, following karmic paths, or being touched by his noodley appendage; but at the end of the day, we are still mortal. To strive for an afterlife that is free of our wants and desires, of our toil and suffering, is understandable. Living is hard. But those very wants, desires, longings, and sufferings are the things that define us; that make us human. Cherish the things that make us so. Live this life. If there comes an afterlife in which all of those things that make us human are gone and that is what you want, than I wish you well in it. I, however, am going to shape my life to love and sing and grow as I am want to do.

60-100 years is a long time to wait for peace and serenity. The first step on this path is to accept that this is the life you are living.