The Spirit of the Garden

In the making: weaving together different prompts

I am enriched by reading all the stories related to the prompts this last week.I am weaving a bunch of them here as they made sense together as well.

Vicky Prokopi “In life eventually we learn to plant our own gardens instead of waiting for others to bring us flowers. How are you preparing and taking care of your own garden?”

Yes, this is pretty much where our journey of self-reliance and growth begins, when we realise we have to plant our garden and only we are truly responsible for it.

I have been wondering about the word responsibility which comes from the Latin word “responsus” meaning “to respond.” There is so much to learn on how to respond to life.

Our societies, communities advise us to seek solutions to our problems, find happiness in the external world. It could be in a person, in a car, in a job, in marriage and so on to plant our garden. All of them are crucial visitors to our garden. Offering us feedback from time to time and nourishing our garden. At intervals, we share this garden with them, but they don’t live there and are not responsible for how we tend our garden.

Accepting and knowing this is the beginning of our adventure to prepare and take care of the garden.

Wilfredo Resto “An open door won’t take you anywhere if you don’t walk through it.”

Now that we are to take care of the garden how do we learn, who are our teachers? It moves into this question of open and closed doors in our life.

The opportunities, people, nature any entity we interact with in the world aid us with the needed knowledge to nourish and feed our garden. Very rightly as reflected in the prompt if we don’t walk through the doors or don’t learn anything from it, then every door unlocked is pointless. So, how far are we willing to go, risk what we know to learn more?

If we are not willing to take the steps to go in there, we will be having a garden probably overgrown and full of weeds.

Aswin “The element of our existence.”

Which brings us to the element of our existence. What motivates us to walk through these doors? Happiness and freedom are biggest motivators for all of us humans which bring me to mind this quote by Epictetus a stoic philosopher

Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not. If within our control then act, if not act with courage.

So what are we seeking? Do we want our garden to be merely with flowers, few plants, artificial grass? Or a poorly maintained patch of land? Or are we seeking exuberance, depth, wildlife, a thriving ecosystem? What represents our element of existence?

I would like to think we all want to evolve to the fullest potential a human life can offer and witness the evolution among others as well. Tending with love, compassion and kindness every single day.

Thank you for the prompts and for Diana C. for being you x