The Garden - An Adventurer's Place to Dream

Note from the Outdoor Neophyte:

Pamela Laurence writes for us on the "immediate outdoors" of our own home garden. Once I began my outdoor adventures, I also started work on a small garden in the back yard. Now, each fall when my garden "goes to sleep" for the winter, I experience the same sort of sadness as when I finish a wonderful mountain trek. The garden, which I am privledged to tend, has become my own personal outdoor environment which holds the promise of mother nature's larger spaces. Accompanying Pamela's story are two lovely gardens I encountered.- the first, located in Skardu in N.E. Pakistan, enroute to K-2, the second located in Chitral in N.W. Pakistan enroute to the Afghanistan border. Both gardens served as temporary retreats from the world I left at home, as well as, stepping stones into nature's grand garden landscape.

For more information on Pamela, please check her website at the end of her article.

Living with the Nature Spirits

By Pamela Laurence, © February 1999

Beloved elf and fairy

Hop and dance around

The trees and plants obliging

Not a care to be found.

The sunlight warms the clover

The rain puddles on the rose

Together the elf and fairy play

As the garden grows.

How does your garden grow? What is growing in your garden? Where does your garden grow? To live in balance with nature – to live in tune with the natural forces of our planet, this is our goal, for after all we are natural beings despite our fast paced computer age. How much of real natural life do you surround yourself with, versus how much artificial light, air, flowers, materials and surfaces are around you. Look at your home as another layer of your skin or at least a layer of your clothing. What are your wearing in your home that is natural? Bring some fresh flowers to your dining table or to your nightstand. The true scent of a real flower plus the pure colors of a real flower have so much more life force and healthy vibration to them - they will aid in your digestion and sleep vs. the "virtual reality" of an artificial flower. You can also call upon the spirit of the flower to bless you and fill you with its essence as you honor it in your daily activities. Plants are very much alive. They speak through their shape, size, color and spirit energy. They have a presence and a personality as a pet or a person.

Try placing a plant in the center of your home or in a room with the intention to create a breath of vital, healthy life, thereby setting up a resonance between you and the plant. There is one life force that flows in and through everything. By knowing this, plants can be used as a tool aiding your health and well being. Plants pick up on your energy - that is why those people who spend time talking and relating to their plants generally have happier and healthier plants. These people usually are also happier and healthier for you can also pick up on and draw upon the plant energy. Remember that everything is energy, there is not anything that is not energy. For example, if you find that you are very depressed it is recommend that you place nine different happy, healthy plants around a room that you spend a lot of time in. Just the nature of these happy plants will affect your chi or energy in a positive way. All reactions have an equal and opposite reaction and all interactions can work with the laws of nature to become energized. You can work with plants as a healing tool when you learn how to speak and honor the natural spirit of the plant. Nature spirits are very sensitive, loving energies that want to please us. But, like a good friend, if they feel neglected or used, they will not live up to their full potential.

When you look to design your garden or landscape, I invite you to start from your front door – standing from the inside! Open your door and imagine what you would like to see each morning when you leave home. What plants and trees would you like to have greet you, inspire you, and lift your energy for the day? I invite you to create a magical path to walk down. Try to avoid getting into your car through your garage where you don't experience fresh air, or any radiant faces of nature. Too easily and for too many years our society has been aimed toward technological development. Like everything else in life we need a balance and right now I feel that our planet, which mirrors us, is out of balance. Our planet along with us is an ecosystem. With more and more roads, parking lots, etc. we are beginning to feel the effects of this imbalance, through stress related and immune type diseases. Trees remove gases, restore and supply oxygen, improve air and water quality, make topsoil, circulate moisture, reverse industrial impacts and offer a nice shade on a hot summer day. We need air to fill our lungs to breathe and survive. The planet needs trees, which act like the planets' lungs, to freshen the air we breathe. I encourage you to plant trees and shrubs – as many as you can. Support environmental programs and honor the nature spirits. For if the trees don't thrive and live a healthy, happy life, the nature spirits will not be able to dance and play and then "we" may go away.

Pamela Laurence is a leading holistic lifestyle educator. She is President of Face Your Self, Inc. and can be reached at www.faceyourself.com or info@faceyourself.

Home Your Stories