The temple of God is within your soul

 

 

The temple of God is within your soul. 

Enter into this quietness and sit there in meditation with the light of intuition burning on the altar.

There is no restlessness, no searching or striving there. 

Come into the silence of solitude, and the vibration there will talk to you with the voice of God.

And you will know that the invisible has become visible, and the unreal has become real.

Parahamsa Yogananda

An elegant summation of the true aim of yoga by a great, good, generous, frankly gorgeous yogi who has done so much to transport and translate the gifts of yoga from east to west. 

I feel the deep truth of his words resonating throughout my being -a lovely feeling.

Hari om 

Jennifer

High summer at Glastonbury Healing Gardens

Good things to come!

I set out for the Healing Gardens under a changing sky, indigo clouds with a cool feel to the day. The sound of tall grasses swooshing in the wind accompanied me as I descended the grass pathway to the growing area.

I paused to greet the chickens who clucked and clamoured as I approached their enclosure. And passed young fruit trees carrying their tender offspring: cherries and apples for later in the season.

A little further along, tiny translucent berries ripening steadily illustrated this moment in time - the sweet spot between summer solstice and lammas.


 
 
As I browsed the produce in the planted beds, I noticed that many wild insects were sharing this special place with me. Certain species clearly having an affinity for certain plants: ladybirds on the sage and mint, bees all over the borage and earwigs crawling under the kale.

Exuberance and colour

A delightful sense of harmony spread through me and I thought about how, when we garden with sensitivity and care, nature blesses us with the gifts of her diversity.

The clouds looked as though they might burst at any moment, so I detached myself from my musings and got busy with the day's harvest. Juliet had asked me to pick up some chard and I was interested in salad ingredients for myself.


There was a choice of chard; red, yellow and white stemmed varieties growing comfortably alongside each other. Two types of kale, several lettuce varieties, landcress, rocket, flat leaf parsley and bronze fennel.

I was excited to see so many edible flowers; surely the essence of summer - each a miniature mandala - balance, beauty and perfection on a small scale.  I made my selection with a happy heart.

A nest of onions begging to be picked!

In contrast to the delicate blooms and leaves in the salad beds, heavy, brooding artichokes, robust broad beans like giant's fingers and families of earthy onions asserted a vigorous presence nearby.

I admired a row of strange alien shaped allium heads that rose high into the skyline.



 
Turning to leave, I noted a bed of chard stalks, left on the earth, laid out to decompose and nurture the soil.

The poetry of dead forms

A transparent reminder of the cycle of life, the quiet efficiency of nature endlessly recycling and wasting nothing and the poignancy of death and changing forms.
  
Each time I visit the gardens I feel grateful not only for the wonderful food that nourishes my body, but also for the gentle teachings that I receive wordlessly from the plants and other living creatures.

Healing Gardens indeed.


 
Glastonbury Healing Gardens Co-operative is a year round expanding community project, currently open to new members.

Website: www.GlastonburyHealingGardens.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Glastonbury-Healing-Gardens-Cooperative

View additional pictures from today's visit on my facebook page

Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart

Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart
And try to love the questions themselves 

Don't search for the answers,
Which could not be given to you now,
Because you would not be able to live them

And the point is, to live everything
Live the questions now

Perhaps then, someday far in the future,
You will gradually, without even noticing it,
Live your way into the answer

Rainer Maria Rilke

For me this piece translates the subtle, beautiful feeling that flows from a deep acceptance of circumstances; the recognition of grace at work. The presence of love guiding and healing and moving all things.

Releasing the tension of trying to fix and correct circumstances, the falling back into trust and patience- ahh... and allowing the resolution to unfold, much as in a deep opening in a yoga pose that can only really come from softening rather than striving.

Om shanti - Jennifer

Today I bestow the essence of Love upon everything

Today I bestow the essence of Love upon everything

Everyone shall be lovely to me

My soul meets the soul of the universe in everyone

Everything is beautiful, everything is meaningful

Ernest Holmes

Spring Equinox Inspiration

"And spring arose on the garden fair,

Like the spirit of love felt everywhere;

And each flower and herb on earth's dark breast

Rose from the dreams of its' wintry rest... "

The Sensitive Plant by P .B. Shelley

I love this romantic poem, how it evokes the wonderful mystery of life force returning in nature and as a metaphor for an inner re-awakening that is powerfully possible at vernal equinox.

I am sharing some favourite images that I like to meditate upon as we approach the tipping point into spring; rich in symbolism, depicting the Pagan goddess Eostre re-birthing and re-animating the land.

This can be fully observed in the green lanes of Glastonbury; hawthorn tips, nettles beginning to grow,  and glorious symphonies of birdsong that are an enticement to open all windows and doors and fully receive  nature's sound bath, despite the still chilly weather.

Spring Equinox by Nina Ulana

Eastre by Jacques Reich

Spring by Hans Zatska

Eostre Goddess of Spring by Lost in Black and White

Artha, Goddess of Spring Equinox by Caroline Gully-Lir

Ostara by Cynthia Rudzis

Rebirth of Spring by Pablo Montes

Goddess Ostara by Mickie Mueller

Equinox blessings, be well

Jennifer