Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow;
    they toil not, neither do they spin.
And yet I say onto you that even Solomon
    in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

Attention is the rarest
and purest form of
generosity.

Simone Weil

THE SETTING

No one knows everything. Some more than others. Let's consider this: living offers learning. What one knows one has learned. What one believes one has imported and by preference or priority accepted or adopted. Knowledge is personal and a good thing. Belief is personal and a necessary thing. Knowledge and belief are not synonymous. Knowledge is the outcome of comprehension (understanding), a mastery of what is real, having sought it, found it, and tested it. Believing is not knowing; it is a decision to accept as if true regardless, influenced by gut or instinct or trust - the heart - seat of wisdom. Such is a valuable bit of awareness The head and the heart, thereby, have a mutual understanding of each other. They abide with each other well enough to let each other be the best of what each is purposed to be. Awesome.

THE CONFLICT

Living - experience - is an excellent teacher. Thereby, one may come to know this: it is one thing to be uninformed (not knowing), another to be blithely ignorant (not wanting to know), quite another to learn and have the knowledge and still elect to propagate a falsehood whether for lack of courage, for profit or favor or fear of contradicting an endearing or communal belief; and worse, it would be firmly evil thence to set upon persecuting purveyors and exemplars of that which is factually known to be true, truth here being unequivocally defined only and entirely as that which is in accordance with fact and reality, that which is actually and really the case, as distinct here from wisdom (that higher knowledge). Slipping and sliding betwixt - *BOOM!* - there goes the 'heart' and the 'head' - splatter-split-split! In the pit of a wilderness. A battle begins: Headless vs Heartless. Title it: "Whipping at The Stubborn Post." Title it: "Mutually Assured Destruction."

THE SEPARATION

No one knows everything. A deceiver (the scammer) counts on it. A seeker may in time discover this too: knowledge does not indeminify one against deceit (scams) and may well be co-opted as one of its supreme agents. One may find such an awareness invaluable; especially if recognizing deciet to be a prickly feature of the wilderness. Its antidote is not ignorance. How about pretence! The heart can hide there, shoving belief to its defence. Courage depleted. Demolition of the draw-bridge. Split completed.

THE WANDERING

There is life and living beyond the wilderness, healed head and heart soon know. Environments, energies and elements beyond the wilderness are substantially different from those within the wilderness. Though evil is everywhere, beyond the wilderness wisdom like streams of living water flows refreshing - beautiful and unmatched, as romantic and as pragmatic as needed. There, evil is already defeated, but vexingly belligerent. What it intends for chaos and destruction manures fertile fields, which flourish more. It takes a purposeful step to activate 'The Go' beyond the wilderness! Thereafter, step-by-step, one may enter New Fields & Renew, there, where heart and head discover how much they need each other, where they are encouraged how to let each other be, and in that inspire each other to be the best of who they are for what each is purposed to be, for the one is never truly whole and free without the wholeness and freedom of the other.

THE AWAKENING

May head and heart enlightened exit the wilderness and begin to explore new fields beyond. May head and heart discover revitalizing resonance that brings with it a rich overflow. "In truth," Professor Lisa Miller explained, "we need to be able to feel deep guidance of the heart and discern the way forward with the head, and when we do our lives become a one of a quest. Quest is when I can ask a question of my head . . . and receive guidance through a knowing of the heart."

A garden fountain; a well of flowing water.

We've sampled the circle, transported through its mysterious portals: portals of wonder (the heart - euphoria, a magnificent expanse, la-la-land); portals of practicality (the head - seclusion, a wilderness, being trapped, solid ground); and discovered in our samples broad varieties of a circle's yin and yang. Are there other sides to a circle? Are there other portals, ways of seamlessly going in and out unentangled? Is each of us inevitably umbelically tied to one kind of circle or another? Is there such a thing, ulltimately, as existence on the outside of a circle? How do you describe your circle? Let's explore. What did we find?

Collaboration - Camaraderie - Knowledge - Action

A garden is a collabortive creation. The Eden of our origin story has the human emerging with guidance into its creation. How remarkable! Is the human essential? Though never of the human alone, there is no garden absent the efforts of a human, focused, facilitating its design, impacting its flourishing and its longevity. Of a garden the human is a co-creator. This unique story, unpacked, is full of integral enlightenment with supreme opportunities.

But what about the lily?

A garden emerges from a collaboration of environment (the terrain, its weather and seasons); elements (nourishment - sustenance, seeding, and size); and energies (fuel - preparing, plowing, planting, pruning, picking, provisioning). The quality of each and every collaboration, i.e., how the environment, elements and energies interplay through time, is revealed in the garden's flourish - its regalia - its longevity flourishing.

Why garden?

There is just something about a garden!

A garden is not a forest; it is created. A garden is not a wilderness; ii is not wild. A garden does not sustain itself unprovisioned; it requires nurturing. A garden is not a happenstance. Every garden needs its keeper. A garden unkept devolves through wildness into a wilderness. A kept garden is uniquely precious.

Out beyond one's garden there are fields of many kinds, each bounded in one form or another, designed in accordance with purpose, preference and protection, and yet the air we all breathe transcends through and through.

Out across and through broad fields there are astonishing varieties. Secrets sought by those in some fields may be found hidden wide-open in other fields. (You count; we need you. Ubuntu. Sonder. Umwelt. The story. The legacy.)

Consider the lily.

The lily is not a rose.

Consider the sunflower. It is not a weed. Would the hyacinth be bettered by becoming a forsythia? What might be the hibiscus’s dream whilst dancing in a field of mango trees?

At the risk of employing an anthropomorphic fallacy, should blue bonnets running alongside prairies and through meadows bristle at the flamboyance of bearded irises dancing in open fields or at the audacity of catmints and creeping junipers rolling around gorgeous hills? Would water poppies, or the corkscrew rush, or the moneywort, bloom any prettier or more plentifully sticking-up their noses at the rich diversity of wildflowers waving at their whistling streams?

Consider the lily.

Is the lily free?

Perhaps, indeed, should all of heaven and earth come together in harmony as foretold - The New Creation - come full circle heaven-and-earth will be The New Garden flourishing with and for all of its inhabitants, and there its co-creators will be heard singing a New Song never growing old. Perhaps! Explore.

Collaboration vs Cooperation vs Creation

• What constitutes collaboration in your environment?
• What are the essential elements of cooperation in your field?
• What would be your role where you are called to be a co-creator, and how would your energies be most advantageously employed?

Consider environments, energies and elements, especially how they relate to each other co-creating your gardens. Consider this, our dynamic world, in a neutral universe. Explore.

Creativity - the ability to make or otherwise bring into existence something new, whether a new solution to a problem, a new method or device, or a new artistic object or form. - Britannica

a work of outstanding artistry, skill, or workmanship.

tour de force

ILICET - A Time To Begin Again

* * *

You are

What POWER!

WISDOM

Experience + Knowledge + Good judgment