Today I was directed to use my initiative, which I did, only to be told that my initiative was wrong. I felt slightly irked by this rebuffing of my initiative. I thought it rather defeated the object of initiatives because if you want someone to use their initiative then trust them and let them get on with it. Otherwise, just direct the person in their actions, then you’ll get what you want, no feathers ruffled. It’s a sign of dodgy people skills, if you ask me, and I’ve had plenty of experience of THOSE! So, Lesson Number 1: Keep your initiatives to yourself and/or spend them on someone/ something who will appreciate them. (Lesson Number 1.1: acknowledge you are probably an unmanageable person a.k.a independent spirit, and therefore free to sail your own ship, plough your own furrow, ice your own cake. Hurrah!)
My irked reaction wasn’t helped by my waking up with a sense of dread and impeding doom following a particularly hideous and graphically violent dream. Rarely are my dreams like this and I felt discombobulated as I tried to work out the meaning, symbolic or otherwise, of the dream. Anyway, a bit of meditative breathing calmed me down somewhat, but I still had an edge of the grump about me throughout the day. This caused me to drop a wooden crate on my ankles and trap my left hand pointy finger in a gate latch. I’m blaming some poor alignment of the planets for these travesties and NOT that I should have made time to banish the grump and put on a smiley face in its stead. However, I believe Venus is due to arrive in Scorpio soon, which is a good thing. Apparently. Lesson Number 3: don’t worry about occasional and random hideous dreams - probably just your brain misfiring. If they happen on a regular basis, well, you may have a problem.
I’ve started gathering some flower seed heads, because why buy packets of flower seeds when you can glean your own for free? Here they are, on a paper plate, drying out…
Of course, putting them all on a single plate without a label to be seen could be construed as ‘asking for trouble.’ It’s okay, I thought to myself, as I collected a seed head here one day, and another a few days later. I’ll remember what they are! Ever the optimist, me. There’s nasturtiums, cornflowers…er, some purple fluffy ball thing and….er…some daisy-like cheerful number, possibly pale lilac…erm…or maybe white….??
It’s not been a hugely organised process but I am looking forward enormously to storing them in lovely little envelopes and then sowing them next Spring to see what comes up! At least they are all flowers. Except that big round ball one that looks like a Malteser with the chocolate licked off. I found it on the floor of the greenhouse at the Dorothy Clive Gardens. Could be anything. See? Excitement! BUT…Lesson Number 3: take photos of your flowers before you remove the seed heads so you’ve got a chance of sorts of identifying them in the future.
I’ve been pondering a certain space in the garden because I feel it needs to be filled with purpose of some sort. In the last five years we’ve gone from a flat, blank canvas of garden to one with a large fruit cage, a greenhouse, a mini-orchard/walled garden, a compost bin/ utility area, a flower garden, a lavender bed, a raised bed vegetable area, a grassy knoll, a wildlife pond, a woodland area and now a grapevine/ hops pergola. It’s a garden of rooms, if you will. But there is one space left ‘twixt the lavender bed and the orchard leading up to the raised beds and just before the pergola, which is still waiting for its purpose to be designated. It’s flat. It gets plenty of sunshine. It’s protected from the winds. It gets a bit boggy in heavy rain. It’s about 18 feet wide by 35/40 feet long. And whilst I was performing the aforesaid pondering, the words ‘Apothecary Garden’ popped into my mind.
When ideas pop into my mind without deliberate thought on my part, then I know they are ideas being sent to me from ‘out there.’ From my instinct, my intuition, my spirit companions who always know what is best for me and are often exasperated when I ignore them. However, since I started my Healer Training over seven months ago now, I am getting much better at listening to their wisdom and, dare I say, acting upon it! An Apothecary Garden, eh? Well! Very exciting! A bit of doodling and designing, then? A bit of research and reading? Another level of learning linked to one of my Four Best Things - reading, writing, sewing, gardening.
What a perfect gift to be given now that the days are drawing in. A lovely bit of project planning for an Apothecary Garden.
Lesson Number 4: seek stillness and listen. Words will come which mean you’ll never want for help, direction and inspiration.
Oooh, I’ve just had a thought about what might have triggered my unusually bloody and violent dream. Tony Blair was on TV yesterday, spouting his usual hypocritical and ‘holier than thou’ shite in his ‘would you buy a used car from this man’ fashion. He is a person who has always elicited a deep sense of nausea from deep within my bowels, much the same as rice pudding and pomegranates do. Problem solved! It’s his fault.
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