Angel detail from The Virgin of the Rocks – Leonardo da Vinci
Republishing this post from last Christmas Eve.
To be a gardener, you must have faith. You must believe you can coax life to bend to your will. You are a god.
This is a spiritual time of year, and a time to renew faith in God. Whether a personal god, the pagan gods, or a god of doctrine and formal beliefs, any true belief is a comfort. A comfort that there are bigger things than us, that we exist in a larger spirit. Life will always go on.
I have this faith. And yes, I believe in God despite any scientific proof. I see it when a flower unfurls, a seed sprouts, when the sun bursts thru the clouds. I am comforted by faith.
For a parent, the moment your first child is born you become a convert if you did not believe before. The joy, magic, and love can not be measured. They simply are. God washes through you.
In this season, commemorated by the birth of Jesus, let’s find faith in the larger spirit rekindled in that joy of a child’s birth. God comes with a fresh promise of the innocents. Christmas is that celebration. It’s a great time of year to re-affirm our belief in the good power of life.
I do not practice religion and would probably be more Buddhist or Anthroposophist than Christian if I chose an organized path of spiritual expression, but I honor all the good that Jesus represents. I was brought up in a church going family, and while rejecting the church, I do not reject the goodness of God and the underpinnings of faith.
I just don’t go in for a lot of structure and mythology in my own understanding of God, and this time of year am saddened by the commercialization that has almost destroyed the season and forces many of us to wince at the very mention of our own religion.
So many horrible things have happened and continue to happen due to religion. Religious groups fight over who is the most pure, the truest believers, the “right” God. Its enough to keep anyone away from any organized religion.
But there is still God. We should still celebrate in our own way. Now is as good a time as any. We need every excuse to remind us we are connected to larger things, that we are small, but by our conscious recognition of God we enlarge the whole. We are Gods too.
And this is a good time of year to be reminded. As the sun itself is reborn in the Northern Hemisphere and the earth begins its steady march toward longer days, our gardens are resting; take a quiet moment to be glad for a greater power.
Joy to the world. There is a God. I have faith.
Blessings to you and yours. May you connect to your garden’s spirit, its wild spirit. Namasté ….
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