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by Hank Wesselman PH.D.
The Journey to the Sacred Garden:
A guide to Traveling in the Spiritual Realms
I used to think of my own place of power and healing in the Middle Worlds as my "secret garden" because at one time, this place was known to me and no one else. Since I"ve chosen to write about experiences that occurred both within and through this place in my book Visionseeker, it"s no longer a secret. And since we"re dealing with the sacred realms, this locality could now be more accurately described as my "Sacred Garden." In discussing this with you, the reader, allow me to proclaim with absolute certainty that you have one, too. Allow me to elaborate.
All of us have fond memories of places that we"ve visited in life, places with which we feel a strong connection. Often these are localities in nature where we"ve felt complete somehow or at peace in ways that are hard to define, yet easy to feel. In our meditations or in our daydreaming, we often spontaneously reconnect with these places by simply remembering them, and by bringing up the feeling that we felt when we were there.
Those who have read my books know of my heartfelt connection with Hawaii, and of how I learned to visit the Big Island by bringing up the memory of a beach at Kealakekua Bay where I used to swim every day with my wife and children. Over the years that I lived in the islands, I came to know every tree, plant, and stone of this locality, and when I returned to California, it was as though this place was inside me somehow. Through my shamanic journeywork, I discovered that I could go there in my dreaming-while-awake. My feeling for this place was my connection with it.
Accordingly, the dreaming of the beach at Kealakekua Bay came to serve as my Sacred Garden in my inner world, and through my visioning, I found, much to my amazement, that I could talk to the animals and the rocks in this place, as well as to the trees and the plants, the ocean and the wind. And they would respond, most often with nonverbal communication. But somehow, I could always understand what was "said" to me in ways that were elusive and mysterious,
yet quite clear.
I discovered that I could do "gardenwork" in my garden, changing or altering the place according to how I wanted it to be. If I wished to have a bed of roses, a grove of mango trees, or a standing stone there, I just imagined them into existence, and they"d appear. If I wanted a waterfall to sit beside and rainbows to delight the eye, I dreamed them into existence. I even built a house in my garden and invited a caretaker to live in it when I wasn"t there. Conversely, if I found something in my garden that I didn"t want there, thorny vines growing all over everything, for example, or a swamp near my house, I could remove the vines or drain the swamp, even inviting in dream gardeners to help me do so.
And this is when I discovered something really interesting. When I changed my garden, something in my outer life would shift in response. It was almost as though everything in my garden was symbolic of some aspect of myself or my life experiences, and when I changed the symbols within my inner reality, something in my outer world changed, too. I have since come to accept that the ability to do this is magic-real magic.
The Four Rules of the Garden
Through my inner explorations of this magical place across the years, I"ve discovered, as have countless others before me, that the Sacred Garden operates by four primary rules:
1. Everything in your garden is symbolic of some aspect of you or your life experience. This isn"t surprising, since this is also the level of archetypes.
2. Everything in the garden can be communicated with to some degree, enhancing your understanding of both yourself and your life experiences. This practice is well known to the traditionals. We call it divination.
3. Everything in the garden can be changed so that it can be just the way you want it to be.
4. When you change your garden, some aspect of you or your life will change in response.
Finding Your Garden
In searching for your garden, you might choose a locality in the everyday world that you already know and love-a pond in the woods where you caught turtles as a child, or a beautiful lagoon where you swam during a visit to a tropical island. You might be attracted to a forest of towering redwood trees along a foggy, wild coast, or to a magnificent valley surrounded by soaring mountains. You might be drawn toward the dry, mysterious baobab savannas of Africa; toward the endless steppes of Asia, dotted with horses and gazelles; or even to Central Park in New York. Then again, it might just be the garden in your own backyard.
Your sacred garden can also be a purely imaginal place that you create for yourself, one that you can simply dream into existence using your intentions in tandem with your creative imagination. Many of us did this spontaneously as children, creating an inner world that sustained and nurtured us much like Peter Pan"s adventurous Neverland, Alice"s Wonderland, or Dorothy"s Oz.
Much to my amazement, I"ve noted over the years that my Sacred Garden has the ability to change spontaneously, and it seems to do so independently of me or my intentionality. I was quite surprised the first several times this happened. This strongly suggests that the garden has an existence and a value that is separate from ourselves, and confirms yet once again that we"re not making it all up.
I"ve also come to realize over the years that all of us have such a personal place of power in the inner worlds of dream, and in sharing this information with you, I encourage each of you to find it. Your life may change dramatically in response, and much for the better. Once you have your garden set up just the way you want it to be, it will also be there for you when you
make "transition."
This is because the garden is in the same spiritual level in which the after-death Bardo world experience takes place. It"s the level we go into when we graduate. Your garden can
become your Bardo. . . .
My inner garden has become a place of great power and beauty in which I now do much of my spiritual work. I often invite my spirit helpers, as well as my spirit teacher, to meet with me there in order to accomplish various things. I"ve also discovered that this is a marvelous place to invite the spirits of my ancestors to visit, especially the ones who have passed over recently and who
are still in transition..
Needless to say, it also gives me great satisfaction to know that I"ll go to this wonderful place when I die, to accomplish my past-life review and to remain happily at ease until I"m ready to ascend and achieve reunion with my spiritual source-self, my oversoul. |
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