Living in the Garden of Time

When women seek that within themselves that is eternal, when they re-center themselves in their own souls, so often we go to a garden or forest or other natural place. It is there where many of us find our greatest truths. Yet, I find that so often I tend to ignore the wisdom I find in my favorite natural places, continuing to think without question in ways that I have been taught since childhood and that are constantly reinforced by the culture around us.

Lately I have been considering what nature tells us about time, and specifically about the ways we perceive our lives. I have always thought of time using a traditional mathematical model, as a progression from beginning to middle to end, and my own lifespan as a number of years that I constantly spend, like money, and have less of as I get older. I believe that this viewpoint contributes to our society’s perception that youth is to be hoarded and older age something to be hidden, as if by doing so we will be able to hold in our grasp more of our precious years of life.

But, what if I were to think of my life not as a time-bound progression from coming into being to no longer existing, but as a garden or other natural place? What if I do not think of myself as moving along a pre-formed, perhaps even pre-destined, path, from birth to death, but rather as the center of my own garden with time happening around me and as part of me? What if the past is not lost and the future is not simply a non-existent wish, but if past, present, and future were all part of my life right now, like a bunch of blossoms with some still in the bud, others in full bloom, and yet others fading?

In such a place, the flowers that had dropped their petals to the ground would not be lost, but would rather be starting at a new beginning of their journey as they decompose into the soil that nourishes and becomes part of next year’s blooms. The past would be all around me in every leaf, blossom, and root that is made up of plants from past seasons. I have, at times, wondered what it would be like to live in one of the times and places in the past when women’s spiritual power was recognized and encouraged (for wonderful explorations of these see either of Max Dashu’s amazing DVDs, Women’s Power and Woman Shaman: The Ancients). Who would I be if I had lived my life in such a time? What if that time were not gone, was not dust under our feet, but alive within us, still infused in the soil of our souls? What if our time with all those family and friends who have given us love and inspiration, but who are no longer on earth, was not over, but was still present in some deep way? Instead of feeling as if we, as individuals and as a generation of women, were on our own as we try to make our world not just sustainable but a garden that nourishes all living beings on it, perhaps we would feel the strength, love, guidance, and wisdom of all those who lived in the past and ourselves as part of a circle that has been a presence in the world for a very, very long time.

In such a place, the flowers that were still in bud, or not even emerged, would not be yet to come and therefore not to be considered as important as ourselves, but rather a part of us and as alive now as we are. Just as I think about the past, I also contemplate the future and wonder how generations after us will live in this world we have created as well as what amazing progress they will make on the foundation of the good things we have done. Considering their well being is not just a kindness to those who will come after us, but an essential aspect of taking care of both ourselves, for we are part of them, and being good stewards of the garden while we are alive in it. And they, too, are part of the circle of all those from both the past and present and, in their own way, contribute to our wisdom and well being by the promise of all they will do and be in their own time.

Envisioning myself as being at the center of a garden of time has become essential to the way I view myself and the world. I find I enjoy my life more because I am no longer fretting about how large a store of years I have left, but rather I see my life as a whole. I no longer long for times and loved ones I have lost, for I recognize that once I have had an experience or come to love someone, they are as with me now as ever. Perhaps most importantly, I feel more like a part of a human community with a deep past and, hopefully, a long future. Not everything needs to happen in my lifetime to count as an accomplishment. If something I say or do now bears fruit in someone’s life decades from now when my petals have gone into the soil, that’s the way things are supposed to be.

As I am nourished by the past, may I be a bloom that adds beauty and joy to the future.