The Aquarian Experiment:  The World Garden

 

We are stardust
We are golden
And we’ve got to get ourselves
Back to the Garden

Joni Mitchell, Woodstock

 

This is an Experiment, so expect the unexpected!  Be open to possibilities, although please don’t get lost in a fantasy.   The Creative Imagination is a real place, known to mystics, magicians, and dreamers.  Go there with a focused attention and record what you see.  As C.G. Jung noticed, if we write down, paint or create something about what we experience in this Imaginal World, we give it value and it helps us grow in consciousness.

 

You can also plant a real garden to reflect the inner Garden, so as you spend time tending it, you can meditate on the World Garden. 

 

Please remember, this is not an airy-fairy ‘everything is going to change magically’ meditation.  The point is to integrate the strength, hope and vision we plant in the WG, as well as develop the ideas and creativity we discover from our meditations there.  It’s up to all of us to create change in our world.  The World Garden is a place where we come as individuals to work on a group project.  This is the People’s Vision for the Future – not one person’s vision but a blending of many people’s visions. 

 

So many creation stories start in a Garden, perhaps because our Earth was indeed once a garden.  Gardens symbolize paradise as well as the Blessed Islands such as Avalon.  Gardeners are creators.  Gardens symbolize the Feminine and the Soul, where we cultivate consciousness.  Gardens are also places where we can develop our abilities to create and nurture life.

I will give you the bare outline of the story – the instructions for getting to the Garden - and you create the rest.  At first, just plant things. Later on, perhaps the Garden will populate itself with animals and birds.  Maybe Leos will draw lions, cat people, cats, horse people, horses, Aries some rams!   Let these spirit animals comes to you in your meditation – don’t force it.  If they come to you, it let’s you know you’re manifesting this kind of energy (dogs are loyal) as part of the new world.

 

Preparation for the Garden.

 

It might be a good idea to plan your garden before you go there.  When you plant your garden, first imagine the ideals and ideas you’d like to see finally embraced by the world – i.e., integrity rather than hypocrisy, partnership rather than domination, courage rather than fear, compassion rather than selfishness, uniqueness rather than conformity.  Or you might want to reform education, the law, medicine and healthcare, the media.  Bring your ideas and ideals to plant in our collective community garden.

 

Then turn those ideals and ideas into a symbol – a flower, herb, tree, shrub, a spring, a lake, a lawn.  Symbols carry meaning and therefore carry energy.  Symbols are transformers.  Plants and trees have special meanings, so in knowing the meaning, you are deepening the connection to your vision.

 

So when you imagine planting your garden, you might plant a stand of Oak Trees to symbolize the strength and endurance that you – and we - might need to bring about some change in the world, while the acorn symbolizes fertility and creative manifestation.  So you plant both the conditions you need for yourself (strength) as well as the outcome (fertility).

 

Here are some books and websites to find the meanings.

Ted Andrews:  Nature-Speak: Signs, Omens &                                        Messages in Nature

 

Flower meanings http://www.aboutflowers.com/flower-a-plant-information-and-photos/meanings-of-flowers.html

 

 

Flowers and herbs:  http://victorianbazaar.com/meanings.html

 

Flowers, herbs, fruit etc. :  http://www.uponreflection.co.uk/ogham/plant_lore_ah.htm

 

 

Tree meanings:  http://www.livingartsoriginals.com/infoforests.htm

 

 

    

 

Obviously, everyone will plant a different garden, but many of you will plant oaks.  It is a universal symbol, which contains its own archetypal energy.  So a symbolic plant in one garden will be energetically connected to other gardens.  You can activate its energy when you meditate on it.   

 

Please plant the best of yourselves – your hopes, your loves, your ideas of fulfillment.   In this common space, where you plant a garden along with others, our common purpose will synergistically fuel the energy and perhaps create a very solid vision in the Imaginal World.  No one else seems to have a strong vision of the future, except for corporations who want a new world order – under them.  We could create an alternative.  People need a vision of the future to pour their energy into.  So if we build it, will they come???

 

Everything starts on the Imaginal plane.  So in imagining a World Garden, we want to only plant the seeds of the creatively possible, the new births that we can all help nurture.  If we all go there, we can pool and share our energies.  Then we watch, and see if things manifest – in our lives, in the world.

 

If you go to the Garden, you leave hatred and lies and negativity behind.  Or the Garden will keep you out.  We are blessing the Garden and setting up wards, so if you come with ill-intent, you will be shunted into another space where you can plant those energies and sow the crop you planted.

 

Please share your resources every time you bless the garden with whatever element or virtue you have an affinity for.  If you have an affinity for fire, take a moment to send some sunlight down on not only your garden but on the whole Garden.  If your affinity is water, call in some rain to gently soak the soil; if air, send sweet breezes.  If earth, make the soil fertile.  Perhaps you bring courage and hope, love and caring; strength and endurance, wisdom and vision.  Perhaps you bring a willing back.  Whatever you bring, don’t forget to bless the rest of the Garden with it.  As you share your resources, everyone benefits.

 

Imagine this Garden as if you really go there to feed the vegetables and flowers, weed the garden, and sit and admire its beauty.  Go to the Garden every day.

 

Stay in your own garden for at least 3 days, making sure the plants/herbs/trees etc. are strongly imagined.  Remember, you have to build the visualization and then see how long you can sustain it.  On the 4^th day, go to your garden and then if you feel it’s solid, go explore!  As you wander outside your garden, perhaps you’ll meet other people there.  Be respectful.  Ask permission.  But make the connections.

 

If you see a stand of white birch trees, perhaps you’ve wandered into my garden.  Please come in and be welcome!

 

The New Moon Ritual: Anytime on February 13-14, 2010

 

Send Your Love

 

Finding the world in the smallness of a grain of sand
And holding infinities in the palm of your hand
And Heaven's realms in the seedlings of this tiny flower
And eternities in the space of a single hour

Send your love into the future
Send your love into the distant dawn

Inside your mind is a relay station
A mission probe into the unknowing
We send a seed to a distant future
Then we can watch the galaxies growing

This ain't no time for doubting your power
This ain't no time for hiding your care
You're climbing down from an ivory tower
You've got a stake in the world we ought to share

 

Send your love into the future
Send your precious love into some distant time
And fix that wounded planet with the love of your healing
Send your love
Send your love

Sting, Send Your Love

 

 

 

Please take at least a ½ hour for your initial meditations, until you quickly and easily can ‘see’ your garden.  Breathe deeply and calmly.  And trust what you see.

 

Visualization:

 

There is a spiral drawn out on the ground in front of you.  As you step into it, turn right and go counter-clockwise. 

 

The first thing you’ll see is an arch with a shimmering Star shining from it.  Go through the arch and see the starry sky all around you.  Walk for three deep breaths in the realm of the Stars and eternity.

 

You come to a 2^nd arch with a silvery, ever-changing Moon on it.  Go through and walk for three deep breaths, feeling the mystery of Luna’s constant changes as it affects the Collective Unconscious.

 

You come to a third arch with the golden Sun shining from it.  Walk for three deep breaths under the shining Sun and feel its warmth as you know yourself.

 

Then you will come to 4^th arch with an image of the Earth on it.  Walk through and see the Earth hanging in space as you walk for three deep breaths.  Know the oneness of the Earth.

 

You have now come to the center of the spiral.  There’s a Door there, and beyond is the Garden, ready for your vision to be planted. 

 

Before you enter, strip yourself naked (in any way you see fitJ) and search within yourself for any negativity.  Leave it there at the door.  Only the ‘pure in heart’ can enter here.  So go back to your child self, your playful, imaginative self that knows how to bring the Imagination alive. 

 

Then remember what you discovered on the Leo Full Moon – your King or Queen, your Warrior, your Teacher, your Healer. Whatever your purpose, see it here in archetypal form – become the mythic person here in the Garden.  

 

Remember to balance that discovery with the pureness of your spiritual intention. 

 

Over the Door is written:

 

To All Who Enter Here

 

Bring blessings, not curses.

Bring vision, not judgment,.

Bring love, not hatred.

Bring tears, not fears.

Bring compassion, not selfishness.

Be imaginative and inventive.

Be happy and quiet.

Be honest and consistent.

Be playful and open-hearted.

Bring your authentic Self

And Spirit will be present.

 

 

Then call in:

1.       The East as cool, springtime breezes to clear out and awaken your mind.

2.       The South as the shining summer sun to clearly see your creative vision.

3.       The West as the sweet water you desire on a hot day to remind you that Love heals all.

4.       The North as the solid ground beneath your feet, so you remember that Earth sustains you always.

5.        Ask Great Spirit to give you wisdom as you plant your seeds for the future. 

 

Now open the Door and walk through it.

 

You will see acres of turned rich brown soil, ready for planting.  Besides that, off in the distance, you see a Giant tree.

 

This Tree stretches through the galactic center of our brightly glowing spiral of stars, with roots firmly grounded in the earth of many planets.  Now this Tree is know by many names on many worlds, for it is the Cosmic Tree, the Tree of Life whose branches hold the blazing stars and whose roots descend to the waters which give birth to the dreams of the Soul. Yet it is truly and simply the Mother, who shelters life within Her many layers and who gives form to the dreams of all Her children.

 

Now Plant Your Garden!

 

If you want to plant honesty, feel those qualities in you as you plant Eyebright which symbolizes far-sight, clearness of vision and the truth.  If re-birth for our world, try a stand of birches.   Be as creative as you can be, and create beauty out of your ideals and your ideas.

 

When you’re in the Garden for meditation: Pray, bless, relax, imagine, cry – just don’t worry or be angry.  Those shadows will come as a natural part of life (we can’t banish them) but don’t plant them.

 

It’s the repetition of going back in meditation every day as well as the desire of your playful imagination that will build this Garden on the astral planes.  This is learning the original language of creation and we’re doing it together!  John Lennon said that he imagined seeing his name in the newspaper so often that he knew it would come true.  And of course, it did! 

 

One person cannot imagine the future by herself.  Two people would do better.  And how much better would it be if 10 or 20 or 100 people showed up in the same place to create something unique in a common ground.    

 

See, the story’s already changed.  In our Garden, there is only one tree, the Home Tree.  And all beings are welcome if they come in love and peace.

 

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

Imagine, John Lennon

 

 

You might want to record the meditation if you can’t remember it. 

Copyright@2010CathyLynnPagano,MA.  All Rights Reserved.

 

If you want to participate more fully in the Experiment, please go to yahoo groups and give your observations over a period of time - see if you connect on the inner planes with someone who might be in the group.  So if you're interested, please go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/worldgarden/  and join us!