Watching the Garden Grow

Ni hao. That's Chinese for hello in honor the of the Chinese New Year. Knowing I’m a cheerful member of the joy luck coincidence club, Happy Friend from last week’s installment sent me a link to a website about synchronicity. Did you know there are “two symptoms of enlightenment?”

Fascinated with the energy body and the chakra system, I’m always on the lookout for symptoms that could portend a major domo insight. So, what’s the word for a hypochondriac in the spiritual realm? I’m keenly interested in discovering any indications that a transformation is taking place within me toward a higher level of consciousness.

Well, the first symptom is that “you stop worrying.” The fine print states that people and events no longer bother you. Drats! I’m certainly not afflicted with that one yet. The second symptom of enlightenment is that you begin to notice an increase in the number of coincidences that are lining up around you. And of course, the more you notice them, the more you get.

Rumor has it that synchronicities can escalate to the point where we begin to experience the miraculous. What is a miracle anyway? How about an absence of time between a desire and its fulfillment?

I may not suffer from the first warning sign of enlightenment (no worries), but I’m definitely experiencing the indicator behind door number two, the following examples are lifted straight from this week.

Riveted by the idea of coincidences and miracles, check out this line from “Frida a novel” by Barbara Mujica. “A brightly colored miniature parasol caught Frida’s eye, and Alex bought it for her. ‘It’s for a doll,’ he told her, ‘and since you’re a little doll, I’ll buy it for you!’”

I’d just read this passage when my partner in the Frida-capades, Frida Rosarita, returned home from a whirlwind trip to Hangzhou, China. She’s quite the poetic photographer, as you can see, and look what she brought me - a charming parasol! When I told a friend how charming the blue and white parasol was she asked if it was a drink umbrella. Huh? Never mind, the point is there was no time between the desire inspired by the novel and the manifestation.

This one is even harder to ignore. Thursday, I went to bread night at the Axe & Fiddle with Chakra Girl. While enjoying the community gathering in Cottage Grove, a display of ceramics caught my eye. In that moment, I imagined how fun it would be to incorporate clay into my work, but then I realized I would need a kiln. I let the thought go, content with the feeling it evoked.

That was Thursday evening. A day an a half later, I received an email asking if I had any need for a “starter kiln.” What?! By Sunday it was delivered and positioned in my basement, including a professional grade extension cord. My heart does a little jig every time I see it.

As if that wasn’t enough for one week, after last Wednesday’s inspiration to “get me a new song,” the receptacle for the paper shredder needed emptying. As the cross-cut confetti spilled into the recycling, three random single words from oodles of paperwork survived the decimation. Ready? “Your. New. Story.” Ooooh, this makes me so happy.

Which was a change in mood from my pity party. I may not be the perfect hostess when it comes to dinner, just ask our latest guests (they didn’t like our salad dressing, we served the wrong wine, they had to ask for water and their coats at the end of the evening. Oops), but I excel at throwing lavish pity parties for myself. I never forget a detail, I attend to my every complaint and always serve the right whine.

What was the occasion for my latest episode? Oh, the usual victimization of unfairness. If everything is energy and if I don’t like the results, that is, the boomerang effect from my personal energy field, then I must be doing something wrong. Confession, I feel like I’m energetically disabled. I would have said retarded, but that word is a red hot trigger and we wouldn’t want to be offensive even if what I do feel is that constant low grade fever of frustration from the knowledge I should be able to understand something but my development is just so damn slow. What I need is feels beyond my grasp.

What is effortless for others requires tremendous exertion on my part, as if I have partial paralysis. Frida Kahlo, the artist, suffered this kind of pain in her legs to the point of amputation. Perhaps I feel the kinship in my energy body. Grasping, clutching, needy. Uh-oh, needy is creepy.

I mentioned earlier today that I’m keenly interested in discovering any indications that a transformation is taking place within me toward a higher level of consciousness. I view my life as a garden, the fruit proof that I’m doing it correctly. I have this metaphorical little plot of earth and I have consulted volumes of gardening books written by the experts and I’m trying to do everything according to wisdom, planting with the rhythms of the moon, nurturing the seedlings with love and attention, attacking every weed with a vengeance.

But my little plot of earth remains barren regardless of the multi-vitamined watering system, the perfect balance of sun to shade ratio and the enthusiastic affirmations I coo to the fertilized soil.

I was lamenting my failure as a gardener when my sister crashed my pity party. I offered her my tears in fine bone china teacups. She said they tasted bitter. She also had the audacity to tell me “expectation was the opposite of acceptance.” You can’t force things to be, you allow them to be. What?

“And besides,” she said, gearing up for a doozy, “you’re blocking the sun with your body all hunched over your little plot of ground like that. I bet you even dig up the fresh seeds just to see what they’re doing if they don’t grow after the first fifteen minutes you’ve planted them.”

Gasp! How did she know? Was that not the right thing to do?

“Stand up, take a look around. That small patch of land is not your life. This,” she said using grand sweeping gestures with her arms outstretched wide, “is your life. You want to live off everything you produce - one seed in, one vegetable out. Your work, your effort, your payoff. Woman, look around. It’s the delight of allowing and appreciating everything in your world that yields a crop. You have an all-season garden, even if it does not grow straight from this heap of dirt.”

She was getting wound up now. “You are completely ignoring the person who brought you a jar of preserves for the winter, or the wheelbarrow full of zucchini for baking bread.” She was running with my garden-is-life metaphor. “You think the only value comes from something you have directly planted yourself. If you’re nice to this person, then you expect (grrr, there’s that word again) them to be nice back to you in direct equal proportions. There, now your energy equation fits. You give them this, they give you that, a perfect reflection of this energy mirror you keep going on about. Yes, scripture says we reap what we sow, but it doesn’t say we get tit for tat. Ever hear of the idea of paying it forward?”

Her words snapped me out of my funk and similar to the special effects in a movie, my worldview rapidly elongated while I stood still. Trippy. In that instant I saw myself planting and nurturing a seed, but instead of it coming straight up from that square footage of soil I’ve been obsessed with, the roots have gone deep and sprouted up all around me. I’m blessed with towering shady trees, luscious fruit, and a variety of flowers blooming all year long. Hey, I’ve got an all season garden and I didn’t even know it.

I’m giving a shout-out to my sister who transformed my pity party into a bountiful harvest of gratitude. Today, January 28, is coincidentally, her birthday, so everyone join me in wishing her a Happy Birthday.

P.S. - On a gossipy note, she’s currently in Las Vegas celebrating her third wedding to her 2nd, 3rd and 4th husband. I’ve now decided to call her Mrs. Harris the III.