Weeding A Garden Mental Imagery, A Metaphor? A Spiritual Tool?

[SoulShades]

This post is an invitation for those who experience vivid mental-imagery in the form of metaphor, divine assistance, or otherwise, to express how it has impacted their own spiritual development or growth.

Here is mine:

I have been working on weeding various portions of our front lawn over the last two weeks--making sure the hostas along the walk have a chance to breath before I mulch them--and when I rest and close my eyes, I find that my mind is lit up with ecstatic mental-images of pulling the very same types of weeds I've just uprooted in the physical world. This "movie" presents a top-down image of twirling umbrella-like yellow and green clover leaves, slithering dandelion chutes being pulled from the ground (I can see it now!), and cool lit-up white/green hostas being gently mulched by invisible hands as a silent white spotlight fills in the open dirt holes where the weeds once took up residence.

Almost all of the movements of these plants in my mind have been associated with something (vague or concrete) I am trying to move past or let go of in my life, ranging from the small negativity bred from holding on to feelings of irritation or resentment towards others, to deeper traumas and hurts I haven't been able to address properly, thus far. The clovers themselves have a kind and inviting feel about them (kind of like the facade of the trickster gingerbread house in Hansel and Gretel), but the dandelions feel more rooted in something a bit dangerous, very abstractly put, like bats with fangs. When I focus the white light on the dandelions, they end up trying to snake underground and hide. The clovers scatter a bit more easily like frightened gnomes who have been masquerading as simple rocks. These particular feelings are not unfamiliar because they have manifested in different places at different times in my life. Luckily, I can plainly see through them as "unreal", but the other side is a little murky. I'm pretty confident that that "other side" is pure love.

I feel as though I have been making spiritual progress because a week before these images started to come to my mind, I was in a moderate mental-slump where my life seemed to have lost a little luster and focus. I had gotten on the train of obsession around a creative project I was working on and lost the distinction between The Higher Power and the Creative force. My inner voice became a domineering critic who kept calling me "a piece of garbage", and my third-eye chakra got blocked up, obscuring my vision.

***I've since made an intention to set my project aside and reboot myself spiritually. This has help substantially.

Now, I'm not one to freak out when the perennial spiritual winter comes, so I weathered through the low and am now back to a place of greater stability. My chakra system is slowly coming back online, particularly my heart, which I think is doing that spotlight fill-in work! And I get the intuitive sense that I will continue to weed this particular metaphysical garden with the light of the Higher Power until it is nothing but love and light. I am so grateful that the spiritual work has been laid out in an obvious framework, this time. Weeding, how easy! (or so it seems! ) It's actually been a comforting scene overall (no stress over it), because I have the hunch that my relationship with the Higher Power will come out stronger on the other end once it's complete.

And nothing in particular seems evil about any of it because I don't think there are true evil entities, rather, that of fear being the antithesis of love and the source of destruction. It is thus something to be overcome through the natural battery of lessons that the spiritual person undertakes, not made into the big, bad enemy. My weeding process has had a bit of that flavor of overcoming.

Any thoughts? (Reasonable) Interpretations? Tips for me as I take this journey?

What's your story?

[Unseeking Seeker]

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Great!

Continuous contemplative consciousness correction is what I call it but it has several aliases!

Go for it!

***

[SoulShades]

Originally Posted by Unseeking Seeker

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Great!

Continuous contemplative consciousness correction is what I call it but it has several aliases!

Go for it!

***

What great alliteration: "C,c,c,c" !!!

Thanks for putting it on the old radar!

[JustBe]

Originally Posted by SoulShades

This post is an invitation for those who experience vivid mental-imagery in the form of metaphor, divine assistance, or otherwise, to express how it has impacted their own spiritual development or growth.

Here is mine:

I have been working on weeding various portions of our front lawn over the last two weeks--making sure the hostas along the walk have a chance to breath before I mulch them--and when I rest and close my eyes, I find that my mind is lit up with ecstatic mental-images of pulling the very same types of weeds I've just uprooted in the physical world. This "movie" presents a top-down image of twirling umbrella-like yellow and green clover leaves, slithering dandelion chutes being pulled from the ground (I can see it now!), and cool lit-up white/green hostas being gently mulched by invisible hands as a silent white spotlight fills in the open dirt holes where the weeds once took up residence.

Almost all of the movements of these plants in my mind have been associated with something (vague or concrete) I am trying to move past or let go of in my life, ranging from the small negativity bred from holding on to feelings of irritation or resentment towards others, to deeper traumas and hurts I haven't been able to address properly, thus far. The clovers themselves have a kind and inviting feel about them (kind of like the facade of the trickster gingerbread house in Hansel and Gretel), but the dandelions feel more rooted in something a bit dangerous, very abstractly put, like bats with fangs. When I focus the white light on the dandelions, they end up trying to snake underground and hide. The clovers scatter a bit more easily like frightened gnomes who have been masquerading as simple rocks. These particular feelings are not unfamiliar because they have manifested in different places at different times in my life. Luckily, I can plainly see through them as "unreal", but the other side is a little murky. I'm pretty confident that that "other side" is pure love.

I feel as though I have been making spiritual progress because a week before these images started to come to my mind, I was in a moderate mental-slump where my life seemed to have lost a little luster and focus. I had gotten on the train of obsession around a creative project I was working on and lost the distinction between The Higher Power and the Creative force. My inner voice became a domineering critic who kept calling me "a piece of garbage", and my third-eye chakra got blocked up, obscuring my vision.

***I've since made an intention to set my project aside and reboot myself spiritually. This has help substantially.

Now, I'm not one to freak out when the perennial spiritual winter comes, so I weathered through the low and am now back to a place of greater stability. My chakra system is slowly coming back online, particularly my heart, which I think is doing that spotlight fill-in work! And I get the intuitive sense that I will continue to weed this particular metaphysical garden with the light of the Higher Power until it is nothing but love and light. I am so grateful that the spiritual work has been laid out in an obvious framework, this time. Weeding, how easy! (or so it seems! ) It's actually been a comforting scene overall (no stress over it), because I have the hunch that my relationship with the Higher Power will come out stronger on the other end once it's complete.

And nothing in particular seems evil about any of it because I don't think there are true evil entities, rather, that of fear being the antithesis of love and the source of destruction. It is thus something to be overcome through the natural battery of lessons that the spiritual person undertakes, not made into the big, bad enemy. My weeding process has had a bit of that flavor of overcoming.

Any thoughts? (Reasonable) Interpretations? Tips for me as I take this journey?

What's your story?

Your visionary/imagination/higher self (which is all you as one) shows the potential of your own melding. In many ways as you create the unfolding I see that you have everything you need in you. Understanding the symbolism and metaphorical relationship of your outer and inner world, you can see how everything we create is an extension of us in every way we are. Nature is also a wonderful teacher and you already have that connection in your world to notice yourself in it. This is the place you can observe, become aware of you as those observations are made in every way of nature’s ever changing cycles and rythyms, the permeneant/impermanent nature of the natural world, the stillness and movement within it, chaos and beauty, destruction and construction, endings, new beginnings..

As for me I’m aware of myself one with my own true nature and part of my opening was to observe myself as you are doing.

“There is nothing to fear, but fear itself”

And yes life is continuous and so are you as life. Moving through it aware and conscious you have everything within you, it becomes life itself, where you can explore yourself through a wide and diverse range of experiences.

[SoulShades]

Originally Posted by JustBe

And yes life is continuous and so are you as life. Moving through it aware and conscious you have everything within you, it becomes life itself, where you can explore yourself through a wide and diverse range of experiences.

I see now that the weeding metaphor has since faded a little into the background of my experience, and that my consciousness has rewarded me with open doors to connections and systems within myself that I had suspected were always there, but did not have continual access to in my awareness. I like what you said about how the unfolding process "becomes life itself."

Thanks for your insight, JustBe.

Pure Love at the core
The light house just on shore
clover dandelion metaphor
Murky murk nevermore
Loves perfume from every pore
Fear not to open that door
Garden living from Heavens floor
Life Love Divinity galore

[JustBe]

Originally Posted by SoulShades

I see now that the weeding metaphor has since faded a little into the background of my experience, and that my consciousness has rewarded me with open doors to connections and systems within myself that I had suspected were always there, but did not have continual access to in my awareness. I like what you said about how the unfolding process "becomes life itself."

Thanks for your insight, JustBe.

I think many seekers do eventually come to the realisation that everything comes in its own time, simply noticing, being observant to what is happening inside you, you meet life as life reveals more. You then see more of you open to meet new Li fe.

It’s a natural unfoldment, especially when all the whistles and bells of spiritual awakenjngs, settle into life as life is. The most enriching aspect in it all, is our immersion as co creators, creating and doing what brings us most joy, but with deeper connection from within..

[Unseeking Seeker]

Originally Posted by ImthatIm

Pure Love at the core
The light house just on shore
clover dandelion metaphor
Murky murk nevermore
Loves perfume from every pore
Fear not to open that door
Garden living from Heavens floor
Life Love Divinity galore

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[Shivani Devi]

Originally Posted by ImthatIm

Pure Love at the core
The light house just on shore
clover dandelion metaphor
Murky murk nevermore
Loves perfume from every pore
Fear not to open that door
Garden living from Heavens floor
Life Love Divinity galore

Yet although love's fetters opt to bind us,
They are only self-serving as to remind us,
The wellspring from which love's cup is drawn,
From moment to moment - eternally reborn.

The garden of the soul has need,
From vibrant bloom, to lowly weed,
Forgo the preference of form and name,
The sun shines on all; and all the same.

[Unseeking Seeker]

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Ha-ha! Looks like the poetry section

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