Sacred Labyrinth in the Garden

Image courtesy of http://www.terrastudios.com/labyrinth.htm


“The labyrinth is truly a tool for transformation. It is a crucible for change, a blueprint for the sacred meeting of psyche and soul, a field of light, a cosmic dance. It is a center for empowering ritual.”
-- Lauren Artress (1)

Gardening is not just about growing food, but about taking time to reconnect with Spirit. A powerful tool for meditation and reconnection is the labyrinth, an ancient symbol of going within and being reborn. While you do not need anything special to meditate and connect with Spirit or with earth allies, having a spot dedicated to spiritual practice can help motivate and support your journey of awareness. A labyrinth leads one to communion with Spirit through meditative movement. Walking the labyrinth’s spirals connects your feet with the Earth, centering and grounding your body and spirit. It aligns you with your path as a spiritual gardener.

A labyrinth in the garden adds beauty and a spiritual focal point. You can shape it out of stones, mulched pathways, little lights, or even rope. If you have a patio, consider painting a labyrinth right on the concrete, or forming one out of tiles. Even a foot-by-foot labyrinth shaped in plaster or carved in wood can be traced by your finger as you sit in your garden. You might follow the classic or medieval labyrinth shapes, or form a simple spiral, which affords almost the same meditative qualities as the twists of a labyrinth.



_____
1. Artress, Lauren. The Labyrinth Society. http://www.labyrinthsociety.org/. Accessed November 2, 2004.




Excerpted from Sacred Land: Intuitive Gardening for Personal, Political, & Personal Change (Llewellyn, 2007) by Clea Danaan.

All rights reserved.

Turning to the Earth for Solace

My daughter loves to pick bouquets of whatever flowers I permit her to pick, then bring them to me in a fistful of love. Here is one she picked today. There are several weeds I don't know the name of (some sort of campanula and something else), a bindweed blossom, and some dandelion seed heads with the fluff blown off. There are still roots attached to the campanula-type flower. It would never fly in a "real" bouquet, but it hardly matters. "I picked zis bouquet for you, Mama!" she says, thrusting them at me.

Several women in my extended network are dealing with major, sad life issues. Two are nearing the birth of babies with birth-defects. One of the infants will probably be fine after etensive surgery; the other will not make it long after birth. Another mother is divorcing her husband after discovering infidelities. Yet another has to get oral surgery on her three year old.

Daily I feel so deeply blessed for my child. For weed bouquets and bugs she's saved from the pond, for her delight at our finding a cicada and her pride at picking radishes from the garden. When I feel the weight of the world, it is to nature - the land and my wild child - that I turn. I give thanks.

I send blessings to my friends and to all other mothers facing daily and unthinkable challenges both. May the Earth beneath you be a stregth and a solace.

Amen.

Energy Plan for the U.S.

I love Obama. I do not love his so-called energy plan. There is no such thing as safe nuclear energy, and no such thing as clean coal.

We need to be switching to wind, solar, and geothermal energy. Everywhere. Now.




Here is one group trying to bridge the gap with natural gas and wind:





For more on energy, see

http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=2271

And