Cultivating the Patience of the Gardener

by Sid Jordan

In this age of information “overload” there is a lot to mentally sort out in deciding what to give our energy to internally and externally.  This interior and exterior landscape, the “Garden Entrusted to Us”, often becomes overwhelming to manage.  Rumi, our standby poet, recommends, “A new moon teaches us gradualness and deliberation and how one gives birth to oneself slowly.”  We need this meditative “deliberation” in gradual and regular doses to allow our intuition to surface and direct us.  He goes on to say “Patience with small details makes perfect a large work, like the universe.”

Of course we are not taking on the universe but rather trying to figure out how to work from home in a Covid atmosphere or find a daycare for our child.  Rumi ends his poem “New Moon” with the line,  “What nine months of attention does for the embryo forty early mornings will do for your gradually growing wholeness.”  He may be implying a “forty early morning” challenge to give attention to our mediation practice for your “gradually” growing intuition.

Meditation becomes an essential element in this process of making decisions as to how to apply our intuition to the myriad of choices we have to make every day.  What to think, speak and do as life comes to us in this garden entrusted to us?

Meditative deliberation begins slowly, internally surrounded by competing emotions and distractions.  Releasing the deluge of thoughts and focusing on our mantra we finally find some peace of mind and clarity.  Taking the advice of my brother-in-law, the late John T. Edwards, who usually finished what he started, he said “Slow down, one step at a time and keep at it.”

To learn more about meditation, join us for one of our Silent Meditation retreats by going here.