Imagine Your Dream Garden

[Guest guest]

Imagine Your Dream GardenAdapted from Earth, Water, Fire, and Air, by Cait (SkyLight Paths,2003).People have imagined paradise as a garden for millennia. Certainly, imagesof gardens, with their complex interweaving of wild and tamed, can give usdeep soul-nourishment, especially if we take a little time to imagine agarden of our dreams.If you could use a little spirit-nourishment and inspiration, try thesesimple steps: you don’t need a trowel or even a packet of seeds, only a fewminutes and the willingness to imagine. A ten-minute visit to your DreamGarden can feel better than a week-long vacation! Why wait?1. Start imagining the basic nature of your dream-garden. Would it bestately or wild and tangled? What grows there? Are there fruit trees as wellas flowers? Are there little winding paths or spacious promenades? Secretbowers and nooks to sit in? Large trees to lean against? How does it smell?2. How do you feel when you go there in your mind? What does your spiritlong for that this garden feeds?3. You may come across pictures that remind you of your spirit-garden. Irecently opened a magazine to an article on a beautiful old house andorganic garden in Provence that I somehow instantly recognized. “This,†Ithought, “is it.†It had soft, high banks of lush herbs, abundant fruittrees, a terrace where friends sat drinking wine in the setting sunsurrounded by flowers--it looked like my idea of paradise. What does yourslook like? You may want to begin collecting photos from lifestyle andgardening magazines, not so you can deplete yourself and your bank accounttrying to replicate them, but just for dreaming, for soul-nourishment.4. Visit your dream-garden often. Learn its paths and byways. You maydiscover things you didn’t know were there: a secret spring, or a pooltucked away among the plants. Imagine picking a ripe apple from yoursprit-tree. Imagine how warm from the sun, how perfect and heavy it lies inyour hand. Imagine its sweet scent, the lushness of its flavor. Allowyourself to experience every pleasure you desire.Copyright: Adapted from Earth, Water, Fire, and Air, by Cait (SkyLight Paths, 2003). Copyright © 2003 by Cait . Reprintedby permission of SkyLight Paths.