In my garden there is a large place for sentiment. My garden of flowers is also my garden of thoughts and dreams. The thoughts grow as freely as the flowers, and the dreams are as beautiful. ~Abram L. Urban
A secret garden would be a beautiful place to go for rest and relaxtion! To rest in a hammock where no phones are ringing, no computers humming, no chores to do would be heaven to me! I lead a group meditation today where the participants went to a secret garden! The imagery was beautiful. The experiences were varied and I dont' feel at liberty to share another's experience in this forum.
I have not had a personal experience with this meditation. If you've been following my blog you know that my meditative journey has very vivid imagery but it is primarily set in a meadow which I have come to believe is truly the valley of my soul. After doing this guided meditation today, I started thinking more about a previous conversation with a friend about the Garden of Eden.
The Garden of Eden is a creation myth. The Garden is used to explain the origin of sin and mankind's wrongdoings. For many medieval writers, the image of the Garden of Eden also creates a location for human love and sexuality, often associated with the classic and medieval trope of the locus amoenus. Latin for "pleasant place", locus amoenus is a literary term which generally refers to an idealized place of safety or comfort. A locus amoenus is usually a beautiful, shady lawn or open woodland, sometimes with connotations of Eden. A locus amoenus will have three basic elements: trees, grass, and water. Often, the garden will be in a remote place and function as a landscape of the mind. It can also be used to highlight the differences between urban and rural life or be a place of refuge from the processes of time and mortality. Some gardens in the genre also have overtones of the regenerative powers of human sexuality.
In the Biblical interpretation God charges Adam to tend the garden in which they live, and specifically commands Adam not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Eve is quizzed by the serpent concerning why she avoids eating off this tree. In the dialogue between the two, Eve elaborates on the commandment not to eat of its fruit. She says that even if she touches the fruit she will die. The serpent responds that she will not die, rather she and her husband would "be as gods, knowing good and evil," and persuades Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Eve eats and gives the fruit to Adam, who also eats. At this point the two become aware, "to know good and evil," evidenced by an awareness of their nakedness. God then finds them, confronts them, and judges them for disobeying.
By questioning God's word and authority, the serpent, who is regarded in Christianity as Satan but not by Jews, initially tempted Eve into eating fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, an act explicitly forbidden by God. The serpent tempted Eve by suggesting that eating the fruit would cause her to become as wise as God, having knowledge of good and evil. Eve ate the fruit, in rebellion against God's command and later so did her husband, Adam, despite God's warning that "in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die"
The term "forbidden fruit" is a metaphor that describes any object of desire whose appeal is a direct result of the knowledge that it cannot or should not be obtained or something that someone may want but is forbidden to have. The phrase refers to the Book of Genesis, where it is the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil eaten by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. As a result of their decision to eat the fruit, Adam and Eve lost their innocence, became separated from God and were exiled from the garden where they were forced to adopt agriculture under less than desirable circumstances for a living.
So what does this all have to do with meditation and a secret garden? The meditation was used as a way to search for our own spirituality, to find God there perhaps. The tree of knowledge of good and evil is a metaphor for conscience. It's a mechanism we were born with and was guided by those around us as we matured in body and spirit. It 's our moral center - a feeling of obligation to what's right and what's wrong. The reason I meditate daily is that my compass for such decisions has been so very skewed at times that I have literally lost control of my life...and spun out and back in to the safe hands of a life force that can not be seen by normal means. When I meditate I feel that life force penetrate my being with such intentional force that I know just for today I am making good choices. I know what hell looks like, it's a dark void inside of me - I've been there...now I seek to the find the secret garden/ the meadow in the valley of my soul so that I can live my life with intention and purpose.
