The Garden, by Steven James, Author and Poet – Orange County
Imagine the garden starting off green and healthy but then consider that your the space is to large for one person to attend to?
Fortunately though, you have a partner, maintaining the garden, and with your mutual effort you are able to manage all the nurturing necessary.
Water, cultivate, plant, receive both emotion and physical sustenance from the beautiful and life giving qualities of your Garden.
Then there is a disruption with your partner and suddenly the Garden is not receiving the full measure of care it needs for it’s proper maintenance.
This produces resentment, frustration, anxiety. So you strike back against your partner, which seems an appropriate action given that you were injured due to their failure or shortcoming.
But your partner has a different view and feels their response was an appropriate reaction to a previous event.
During this time an additional problem is forming. The garden is beginning to wilt. The failure of the partnership is affecting the Garden itself.
Now there is less nourishment for the partners. The partners begin to suffer from the dispute which is further exacerbated by the lack of nourishment and loss of emotional stability that the Garden provided.
One day the two partners sit on opposite sides of the Garden both with heavy hearts. They lament the dilapidated condition of the Garden. Past memories of the Garden peek through with reminders of the richness that was once there.
Now a new battle begins to take form. Will I continue to maintain the sanctity of a position that has resulted in the ruin of the Garden or will I consider an alternative. The pain that has been caused by my partner is so grievous how can that be overcome?
Perhaps it is simply better to walk away and find another Garden? However, hidden among the myriad of emotions and feelings is a spark.
That spark carries with it the reminder of the beauty of the past but more importantly it hints at a future that is verdant with potential, that connects with a deep memory of the potential of two partners working in harmony, sharing the abundant richness that is the foundation for a future of extraordinary Joy.
So as each partner examines their thoughts they wonder, can anything be done? Can the Garden be returned to it’s original beauty.
Through the mutual efforts of my partner could we expand the Garden, could we further develop it’s beauty?
If so perhaps those walking by will be struck by the exquisite beauty of the Garden and will be inspired to seek out their partner with a plan to nourish and expand their Garden?
So what is risked and what is lost and how will that affect beauty at large?
When you are ready to address this question you are ready to begin an adventure that is fraught with challenges but the potential richness of this future is truly unimaginable limited only by our willingness to open our hearts to a different way of being.