Today was the first official day of the Peace Garden Meditation. It was a party of one (me)! But I decided to do it anyhow. For anyone who is familiar with the path I’m on, this is how I roll. lol All of my projects and ideas started off as a party of one. And then they grow. Just like our gardens!
For explanation, what exactly IS a Peace Garden Meditation? It is an opportunity to keep our hands busy while we accept any divine messages that might come to us in the hour-long meditation. We don’t need to have a Peace Garden Meditation with others, but where two or more are gathered in His name… something to think about, and I will explain the idea for this being a women’s gathering later.
Meditation is different than prayer. In prayer, we offer words to our Creator, or our angels and guides. We typically ask for assistance or guidance, perhaps healing or peace of mind. In meditation, we try to turn off our own thoughts so we can hear the messages we are continually getting from the Creator and our guides and angels. They speak with us all the time, but we keep our thoughts so busy, we have forgotten how to listen.
That is why I believe that gardening is one avenue that allows us to meditate. While gardening, we can keep our hands busy, while we open our thoughts up to something bigger than ourselves.
Why don’t we just pray for peace? Well, many of us have been doing so, for years and years, and yet our world seems to continue with wars and poverty. So perhaps it’s time to ask ourselves a very important question: Are we going about this peace thing all wrong? Many of us believe there are answers for creating a peaceful world. However, they come from those much more enlightened than ourselves. So we must listen. Hence, meditation.
Now why do I choose to host a Peace Garden Meditation for women? My inspiration came years ago, while I was pulling together information for a workshop for women on body, mind, and Spiritual health. In my research, I came across the idea of Victory Gardens. During WWII, Americans were asked to produce Victory Gardens as part of the war effort and the rationing of food during that war. Twenty million Victory Gardens provided 9-10 million tons of fruit and vegetables. That equaled all commercial production of fruits and vegetables in the US, and that made a difference for the war effort. It was often the women and elderly who cared for these gardens, while the men were away at war. It was them, doing their part, for the war effort.
Fast forward to today. Commercial agriculture now makes it possible for us to eat South American peaches in the middle of a Minnesota winter. So while we are at war, we are not suffering from a lack of food. (We won’t get into the quality of food that we ingest in this blog.) And yet many of us garden, either to produce food which we know its source, or to produce beautiful flower gardens. I fall into the later catagory, though we had large vegetable gardens for many years.
That little bit of research of Victory Gardens from years ago, has taken hold in my brain these oh-so-many years later. I thought about the power of the feminine energy and the sanctuary of gardens, and thought we might pull those together to create a sacred space of time for a Peace Garden Meditation.
I invite you to join me, either in the physical realm, if you live south of the Twin Ciities, or in Spirit, if you are unable to be a part of the physical group of women who gather. You can contact me through my website or through Facebook, Jill Reinke Sand. I would love to see the Peace Garden Meditation grow this summer!
Shanti! (peace)
Jill