In the center of my inner world, there is a garden. I have arrived here. Just in time for the holidays.

In the center of my inner world, there is a garden. I have arrived here. I am speaking metaphorically of course, but metaphor is real too. When a change manifests in our lives, it often began as a subconscious reshaping of a story. We reconstruct our inner world to accommodate a new view. We make space. With practice, we are able to envision that space as easily as remembering a pleasant day at the beach.

When I found my inner garden, I erupted inside. Like a water fountain long covered up. There is much I’ve longed to say, suppressed by what I’m supposed to be saying, thinking, doing, feeling.

The gate was locked. I opened it with a rusty key that’s hung around my neck since childhood. The key that previously, easily unlocked my creative connection to everything. Until I learned that failure to obey (mostly male) demands for my time, energy and attention caused more suffering than I could endure (then).

My garden is brown, overgrown with unfriendly weeds. The sky is gray and the soil is dry. There are no birds. Isolated from daily tending, denied the careful loving attention of my creativity, intelligence and self-awareness, my garden has withered. I was elsewhere, trusting the world to give back nourishment eventually, if I did right things. It didn’t. The world doesn’t. Our garden is ours to tend.

Despite the current quiet emptiness, my inner garden whispers of extraordinariness. I sense the awesomeness of power available within.

Perhaps we all have an inner space where we know our original connection to a lush sustaining world. Where our thoughts are nourished not by advertising but by sun, plants, the interplay of ecosystems and weather patterns. Where our daily work is surrounded by the moving sounds of rain and growing self awareness. In our garden, we are complete, blessed by abundance. Right sized.

This metaphor is fraught, yes? I write this post on the 22nd of December, amidst our annual resurrection of Eve’s mythic original sin, Mary’s disembodied virtue and subtextually, the vanquishing of demon Lilith who doesn’t obey Men who are God. Hallelujah.

There is a tree decorated in my home. I didn’t know until recently that the Christmas tree is connected to the Eden tree which, according to some, originated on Adam and Eve day, December 24th. The story of how we, especially women, don’t deserve our place in the garden.

Perhaps we simply forget this space, while lost in the world. We have certainly erased an essential element needed to thrive in it. Goddess. Where is she in our stories? She is always, also, a source of our strength. Our balance. Resurrecting our awareness of metaphorical divine feminine is, I think, key to coming home. Rebalancing and revitalizing our understanding of the world that sustains us.

It is not a man’s world unless we believe it is.

Today, I begin carefully re-cultivating my inner garden. I begin with the most essential vow: to arrive. Then: to stay. To rest and think here, to drink the fresh water of good ideas. To trust that I am allowed, fully and completely, to own and craft my experiences.

Here, I am enough. Here, there is enough. I am free to work, deeply connected. I am free to become a work of art.