How Does Your Garden Grow?

How Does Your Garden Grow is a line from the children's rhyme, "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary, How Does Your Garden Grow?" Like most of the children's rhymes found in Mother Goose, I find myself confused by the literal meaning of it. Perhaps there is something more there.

During my morning meditation, as I was customarily asking for joy to be planted in my heart, my thoughts turned to gardening as a metaphor for life. When joy is planted in my heart, that deep root of my being, love will grow and blossom. I must tend to my joy and love, so they will thrive and flourish. Weather, akin to life events, events which happen to us, despite our efforts, bring all things good and bad. It is how we respond that will determine their effect on us. Sun feels good and feeds us, if we absorb its goodness, knowing that too much can ruin us. Rain, while dampening, is also necessary for growth, just as bad situations, while difficult, permit us to grow. As gardeners, it is important to prune away the dead and unnecessary facets of our lives, in order to promote future growth, and to free ourselves from that which prevents us from being our best selves. Careful tending to the gardens of our lives will bring beauty and bear fruit to the world around us. Finally, when our time is growing short, and our actual life here is growing shorter, may we feel peace, knowing that our seeds have germinated to sprout an everlasting garden of love and joy.

​How Does Your Garden Grow?