Ah, the joys of gardening in our northern climes. As I write this (mid-April), I’m huddled up, keeping warm from a bitterly cold north wind, and watching as a light snow falls. Just the other day I was tending to the little tomato shoots as they stretched their newly-sprouted stems, seeking the sun’s rays on a warm, almost hot, day. What a challenge we northern gardeners face - one day can be hot, the next, winter’s back.
I hope you were as inspired as I was by the revelation from the Cayce readings - that we are the garden of love, the garden of God; that the Master desires to “walk and talk” with us there. This concept brings a new understanding of the companionship we can share in our meditations, so thank you Edgar. While it differs from the kind of external walking and talking we’re accustomed to, this “spiritual” fellowship is internal. To enjoy it, we must go within. Again and again, Cayce’s source recommended us to go within to seek answers to problems and questions, or simply to commune with our Maker.
There are just a couple more thoughts related to gardening from the readings that I’d like to share, and both concern the work involved. The first is considered the nemesis of every gardeners’ desire for a bountiful harvest - yes, those nasty weeds. A weed is simply a plant in the wrong place; an unwanted plant that becomes a competitor for those precious nutrients in the soil. Edgar understood weeds, and in a letter to Mrs. [464], he mentions them, giving this spiritual comparison to some unwanted human traits:
“Just as kindly thoughts and loving hands will enable your hibiscus
to bring forth those beautiful petals, so do contention, selfishness,
greed and avarice, bring forth those weeds that allow them to choke
out life. The earth didn’t bring forth weeds and briars that were
obnoxious until man erred, so they must be as much of man’s making;
for he is a co-creator with God ... “ EC Reading 254-63, Report #3.
Another instance when weeds were used by Cayce’s source as an analogy of qualities of no lasting value, came in his advice to a 69-year old medical doctor. In spite of a life of helping people, he received this reprimand:
“ ... [your] efforts become as the seed sown in that ground where
briars and thorns and tares and weeds spring up and choke out the
good. For thy work, as thou hast given it, is founded on temporal
things ... Not that thy efforts have not and do not bring help and aid
to many; but even when aid is given to the sick or the suffering, or
the mentally disturbed, unless these be relieved or eased or set
aright for some definite purpose or goal, that has its basis or foundation
in the Creative Forces, or is of a spiritual import, what good has been
accomplished? “ EC Reading 969-1, paragraph 3.
Sometimes, as with this doctor, it’s our own choices that introduce weeds into our “garden”. But there are times when, at no fault of our own, weeds show up. In any case, it’s our reaction to their appearance that tests our mettle. Do we react with hope and love, brotherly kindness, gentleness and patience, or do we harbor hate, malice, injustice and even jealousy? Cayce would say that it’s the former qualities we should manifest; the others, he said, “are as weeds in the yard of life of the individual, that bring corruption and discouragement.” EC Reading 2489-1, paragraph 26.
Alright - enough with the weeds! Another subject worth mentioning concerning gardening that shows up in the readings is this reminder - that the plant’s life forces are a gift from the Giver of All. While we can do the sowing of the seed and the watering, the cultivating and the fertilizing, we’re reminded that we’re totally dependent for a good harvest on the benevolence of the Creative Energies. Here are two excerpts reminding us of this crucial truth:
“Let that thou sowest in thy relationships day by day be the seeds
of truth, of hope, that as they grow to fruition in thy relationships,
as the days and the months and the years that are to come go by,
they will grow into that garden of beauty ... In EVERY association,
whether one with another in thy relationships, or with thy own friends,
or with the strangers that enter, let thy activities be such that there
may come more and more of that which is DIRECTED by the spirit
of HOPEFULNESS, HELPFULNESS, in thy attitudes one to another.
And as these grow to the harvest in life, the Lord may give the
increase. “ EC Reading 480-20, paragraph 13 - 15.
“You can sow seeds and work them in self, but God gives the
increase. He adds those that should be added from the activities
of their own opportunities, such as are worthy of becoming stars, yea,
even as blossoms in the garden of God, in the garden of love.”
EC Reading 3954-1, paragraph 4.
Finally, I give this thought for your consideration, for the next time you’re savoring the fragrance of flowers, along with the splash of color that they bring. Edgar didn’t explain what it was about those violets that he so appreciated - perhaps no one thought to ask him. He did mention that plant life is a simple life; that they have what he termed a one-purpose life - that is, that the plant’s “psychic force” is expressed in a single purpose. (EC Reading 900-47, paragraph 2).
However, for an explanation of what that purpose might be, we must turn to a more scientific mind, yet still a mind capable of accessing the same Akashic chronicle that Edgar used in his readings. From Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual science, we learn that:
“ ... flowers, in the way they develop fragrance, are nothing other
than organs of smell, real vegetable organs of smell of immense
sensitivity. What do they smell? They smell the cosmic fragrance
that is always present. And the cosmic fragrance that emanates from
Venus is different from that emanating from Mars or from Saturn.
For example, the fragrance of the violet is an echo-in-fragrance of
what the violet perceives of the cosmic fragrance. Plants that smell
nice perceive the cosmic fragrances that come from Venus, Mercury,
or Mars.
‘Perula fetida’ [my note - aka Asafoetida (Devil’s Dung),
used as an Ayurvedic medicine for the digestive system, cleansing
and strengthening the gastro-intestinal tract], perceives the smell of
Saturn, and passes it on in the asafetida derived from it. This is
something these people want to know, for in a sense they want to
know how the stars fall down to earth. What, after all, are the beings
in the world but what the stars send down? If you want to speak
realistically about these things, you have to say: the stars really are
falling down, for they are in the plants. It is not only the fragrance
that is in them, but the plants themselves are actual organs of smell
... the fragrances of the plants come from the planets, while the colors
come from the power of the sun.” Lecture 5, The Book of Revelation
For more on the interrelationship between the plants and the planets, have a look at this link: https://pflanzenkunst.wordpress.com/2018/07/13/plants-and-planets/
This blog is helping me to pick out plants according to my birth sign and ruling planet. Check it out, and you’ll see the connection for yourself.
Came across this today (May 17th), about the music of Nature, from Reading 949-12:
"36. As there is the music of the spheres, there is indeed the music of the growing things in nature. There is then the music of NATURE itself! There is the music of the growth of the rose, of EVERY plant that bears color, of every one that opens its blossom for the edification, for the sanctification even of the environs thereabout!"