Secret Garden of Me

This month’s Artists in Blogland Color This Quote challenge was an invitation to create something in connection with this quote from The Secret Garden written by Frances Hodgeson Burnett:

“The sun is shining…That is the Magic. The flowers are growing–the roots are stirring. That is the Magic. Being alive is the Magic–being strong is the Magic. The Magic is in me–the Magic is in me. …It’s in every one of us.” 

I’ve been thinking a lot in terms of garden metaphors this month, particularly about the garden that’s me.   I suspect it has a great deal to do with the daily selfie practice I’ve established and have faithfully played in every day this month.  I seriously cannot rave enough about this practice – it’s really altering the way I see myself and in turn others. 

I’ve worked very hard for almost my whole life to avoid every opportunity that involves taking my photo.  And yet here I am 30 days into a practice of photographing myself every day and I have feel such a deep flowing of compassion and love.   And while each day it’s a photo of me, having a collection of them now to look at is like seeing a million different sides of me.  That’s where the garden metaphor comes in for me – the garden is me, and each photo I take is like a flower.   Individual, different, reflecting some particular aspect of myself that is captured precisely that way at that moment.  A different flower.

Frankly it sounds a bit ridiculous and utterly simplistic as I write that, but truthfully there’s a depth to this that obviously I’m not able to express with much clarity.  But it certainly feels magical.  

When I mentioned this practice to someone they suggested, cloaked as a question, that perhaps it was a bit self-indulgent and narcissistic.    I have to laugh at that.  I certainly didn’t enter this practice because I so love seeing myself I must have pictures.  That view totally misses the point which is by accepting every reflection of me, I truly am more able to accept every reflection of everything else, and that just moves us all further away from separation into unity.  So that’s really it – unity consciousness entered through the practice of taking your photo day in and day out.  That IS magical isn’t it?

So in doing a piece to reflect The Secret Garden quote, it felt like the perfect opportunity to use one of my selfies.   And while I love thinking of us as blooming flowers, the roots part of the quotation is equally important in my mind. That’s very much a reflection of what I believe – that we are here to root and anchor all our magnificence into the physical.  That’s why we chose to incarnate.  I want to be deeply rooted AND blossoming fully.   We ARE magical – I see it in me, and I see it in you.

Do head over to the Artists in Blogland site and see how others have interpreted the quote.  Next month’s invitation will be up soon too, so perhaps you’ll be inspired to play then as well.

And in the meantime, do you have a secret garden?  Do you think of yourself as a flower?  What kind?  What’s magical in your world?  Do tell – you know I love to hear.