A Mystic Garden by Gunilla Norris

A Mystic Garden, Working with Soil, Attending to Soul is another book by Gunilla Norris. I shared Inviting Silence back in November 2014.This book was read last month as I was anticipating gardening with much longing. The weather of these past few weeks has not brought gardening any closer and I have yet to be able to make the beds ready for seed.

Making the Bed

   Here it is then, three feet by five feet --- a place for greens, a box of hope. It has plenty of sunlight but it's also closer to the garage, and therefore shade lasts longer into the day.  That is good for lettuce.
   The sides of the bed are almost a foot tall. This is a space with a specific purpose. I am not confused about what should be here --- good soil and a variety of lettuces.
   In the house I have a space just for prayer and contemplation. It's a space to help me stay on purpose, to not be confused about what I am doing. Even so, all kinds of things crowd into my mind and heart, thinking, planning, drifting, it's hard to leave room for just being in the presence of God. I'm boxed in by old habits.
  Limitations are necessary for development and growth. Any limitation can be a prison or a place of freedom.  It depends on our attitudes. I need to accept that I can't grow cabbage and broccoli and tomatoes all in the same place.  I have to keep to one or two crops to grow anything decent here,. This kind of limitation is true about a lot of things. In contemplation especially, the willingness to be confined to deep listening, to patient stability, is a proven way to root into God. This can feel like a kind of pregnancy if we will only stay quiet, if we don't interrupt what is really happening. No wonder it was said of pregnant women that they were "confined" with child.

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY --- "Norris cycles through the four seasons of a gardener's heart...She writes lyrically about dormancy and transformation, soil and nourishment, roots and blossoms."