The Garden Metaphor

Hey Occulties,

While I've written this article several times over the years, it never gets old (because some people are really bad with reading the archives, and even the most practiced among us can use the reminder.)

Let's talk about getting results by getting out of your own way (and yep, I mean stop thinking it to death and having lust for results.)

So imagine 3 identical gardens, with 3 people of equal gardening skill, and all of them tasked to grow an orchid among their other flowers. The orchid is a very difficult and delicate flower to grow, and this gardener (each of them) has a large few acres of flowers to tend (that are not the orchid.) Gardener #1 decides that caring for a single orchid over all of their other plants is too much work, and lets the orchid die, with MOST of his/her garden coming out nicely (except the difficult plants!) at the end of the season. Gardener #2 gives more attention to the orchid (it's his/her most difficult plant!) than to other areas of the garden, but splits his/her time well among the rest of the plants and at the end of the season, his/her garden is well kept, and the orchid still alive. Gardener #3 gets very upset that this orchid COULD die, pays way too much attention to this orchid to the detriment of all other plants under his/her care, fusses with the orchid frequently (shocking and injuring the plant,) sometimes over waters or under-waters the plant in an attempt to correct a perception of having under- or over-watering the plant (which isn't true,) and within 3 weeks of the orchid's arrival, Gardener #3 has stopped really tending to his/her other plants in his/her garden, so that at the end of the season, Gardener #3 has all but the most hardy among the plants dead, and the orchid, having been over-worried, is either dead or on its way there.

The gardens above represent your life. 

The orchid is the thing you desire which you are using spellwork to bring into your life (or remove from your life, whichever is applicable.) 

The gardener is you. 

So, Gardener #1 is the personality type that gives in too quickly. "This is too hard! I can't deal with this! What in the fuck do you mean I have to do all this stuff to make this happen!!" 😛 So, basically magic might work for these people, but often if it's any difficulty or change of pace for them, they will soon give in and gladly give up on the wanted thing if it means that the added stress of working to get that thing is gone. 

And this is the type most frustrated by a simple reality: If you want to make a change in your life, you need to give up something to get that thing MOST OF THE TIME. For example, let's say you always wanted toned abs. Well, so you go to the gym and you consult a trainer and you learn to get really ripped abs, you need to do a certain amount of ab work outs every six days, seven days a week. Some of you would say, "Well, that's not that much time. I can do x amount of ab work every six days," whereas others would be like "Screw that, I hate sit ups" (That's Gardener #1 with his/her orchid,) and yet others would say "I will do 50,000 sit ups this one time and be fit forever, right?" 😉 So, the person willing to give up, let's say, 20 minutes a day, six days a week will have great abs, the person who refuses to make any change or who is easily put off by change will probably never have toned abs (unless Nature was giving gifts out when he or she was born,) and the final person who did 50,000 sit ups will have puked their guts out at 1500 sit ups (or thereabouts,) and then wonders why he or she doesn't have instantly toned abs. 

Spellwork to bring someone or something into your life can be quite similar as those "toned abs" though. If you want to bring a person back to you, what are you going to change to make it work this time? If you are trying to bring more income in are you prepared to work more? Are you willing to maintain these changes in behavior, this alteration in free time, etc to maintain the change? If not, whatever you worked to bring into your life has no reason to stay there. 

So if you're type 1, you want change but refuse to make changes in your life, you give up easily, the end result is…well, forget whatever you wanted, it takes a desire to change AND effort and that's too much to ask for some people. You aren't thinking the work to death, you're just kind of lazy. 😉

Gardener #2 is "the good gardener" in this parable. While the "orchid" (whatever the spell is bringing/removing/etc – the manifest outcome,) is relatively well kept, the rest of the garden has also blossomed and is fruitful. This is because the whole garden is being tended, not just the specific small area with the most difficult plant. This gardener slightly altered his/her routine to give care to the orchid and make sure it was kept well while also being sure to care for all of the other plants in his/her garden, thereby enjoying the most fruitful outcome. 

It's important to remember when we're focused on any goal (or outcome a spell is working to manifest) that we don't lose focus of the rest of our life….which brings us to Gardener #3…

Because Gardener #3 embodies lust for results/thinking the work to death. Not only is #3 so overly-concerned with the well-being of his/her orchid, he/she has let the whole garden become brown with only a few struggling plants still holding on, but has also worried the orchid to the point that it, too, is close to death, therefore reaping the least benefit from his/her garden over #1 or #2. 

Remember, your ENTIRE LIFE is important. If you only tend to one tiny part of it, and let the rest fall into disrepair, ask yourself, what is left of your life when you get that desired thing? If all three of the "gardeners" in our example are selling their harvest at the end of the season, then only #1 and #2 will have anything to show for it. #3 will have a sick orchid that's rapidly fading (and probably won't be much help,) and a few sick looking plants. 😛 This is the same with magic – maybe you want this desired thing SO VERY MUCH, and you're willing to devote your time and energy into having it, but you can't focus on it to the detriment of all other things in your life. 

So, when you have lust for results or think the work to death, all too often you're letting other parts of your life fall apart for having too much time taking up over-tending to one part of it, and much like a delicate orchid, if you fuss with anything in your life enough, it will injure and cripple that part from being overly-attended to. 

Often, the key for avoiding lust for results is to focus on parts of your life outside of what you're spellcasting towards, while making sure you're maintaining/altering your lifestyle in such a way that when the spell manifests, you will keep what you want (having made the right changes to yourself/your lifestyle, etc, – and this can be as simple a thing as accepting more hours at your job, or being willing to show up an hour earlier, or letting someone initiate more contact than you do, or speaking less critically to a person.) Don't focus too closely on that one aspect you're trying to change – instead ready yourself for the change you're trying to bring into your life.

Hope that was sensible and some help and didn't come off as a platitude. 😉

~Cat

Everything, except where noted, is copyright OriginalNinjaCat, and cannot be used, shared, transmitted, copied and pasted, etc without my express written permission. I give rewards to people who catch plagiarists so if you find one, do let me know: 🙂