A massive thank you is due. Love and respect to all who created such a rich, laughter-filled, deep New Year gathering. Radiant aliveness, truth, fierceness, healing, presence, tender care, accountability, intimacy, transparency, each moment glistened. ❤️❤️
Some people think they come to Secret Garden to make their lives work better. There is nothing wrong with that and no doubt that this happens – in spades! Far better and quicker to co-operate consciously with the natural imperative towards open abundant living than struggle alone.
Yet, this is the truth of how it is for Joy in Secret Garden – the greatest riches are in seeing and feeling the love of truth beyond self. The fire in someone’s eyes and the silence in their heart. The hunger for the simplicity of What Is. The deeper seeing of where the shifts everyone wants actually come from. Seeing and feeling that fire which burns away all that is not true and natural and the silence in ‘another’ is why I continue to do what I do!
And this cannot be taught. Explorations and circles surprise, in infinitely varied possible ways – and the personality starts to loosen its grip. Then the heart can be ignited and the truth of empty fullness transmitted, beyond any words and happenings.
The soul grows. It takes great humility, courage and commitment to truly befriend the unconscious and accept its mysteries without trying to make them small and controllable. It takes great courage in a circle participant to receive the tough, sometimes hurtful and unarguable lessons of life and then take inner and outer action in new ways.
It takes passion and committment to come to open large enough to receive the frightening possibility that you might just be, and always were, ‘trailing clouds of glory’*.
You. Utterly magnificent.
*Look up the source poem – Wordsworth Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood. This is sheer genius evocation of the pain (when the glimpses go away for a while) and joy (when celestial light is apparent) of the awakening journey.
Some of you know of my lifelong love for the best of poetry and prose! ..I’ve always loved poetry’s potential to bypass the mind and find the heart. I hope you enjoy – & find inspiration in – the poem by Clare Badrick, (published with permission). It was written during the sublime New Year retreat, and shared by her at our New Year’s Eve celebration, where the offerings can vary from a description of an Arctic explorer’s challenge, to Monty Python, to dance, to raga singing, readings of high quality original stories and poems, and much more.
It has been and continues to be a privilege to travel alongside Clare and witness her openings. Her poem deeply touched me, in its real and tender evocation of some aspects of Secret Garden, and of Clare’s life, and I did shed a tear or two.
Secret Garden
The snow melts,
The ice thaws,
The heart softens,
The child explores.
The soul whispers,
Her golden threads,
The flame flickers,
Its warmth spreads.
The beauty unfolding,
The safety in holding,
And truth like a laser beam
Reveals all that is unseen.
The comfort in kinship,
This slow revealing,
The fierceness of friendship,
This circle of healing.
By Clare Badrick, 28-30th Dec 2018
Thank you Clare. For being, and for this.
Endless love,
Joy
P.S. Come re-boot at a live gathering https://secretgarden.co.uk/backup/events/ I hope to be with you soon.
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The pic was taken this week – overnight the valley was transformed into a winter wonderland that melted in deeply warming morning sunshine.
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