Patricia Pearce

Helping You Be the Change

Weeding the Garden of the Mind

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What's growing in your garden?
What’s growing in your garden?

My spouse, Kip, and I have a plot in a community garden. A few weeks ago one of our fellow gardeners asked me how we manage to keep the weeds under control. When I told Kip, his quick response was, “We weed!”

Easier said than done. Early this spring we had to dig up dozens of strawberry plants we’d planted last year, because over the winter, weeds had encroached into the patch. That’s actually putting it mildly. The weeds had invaded—and they had conquered.

I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to grow strawberries, but they’re a monster to weed, and I understand now why some ingenious and probably frustrated person came up with the idea of a strawberry jar. The plants propagate by sending out dozens of little runners that make using a hoe between them impossible.

After struggling to clear out the weeds by hand and getting nowhere, I realized it would be easier to dig up the whole strawberry patch, extricate the weeds, and transplant the strawberries all over again.

The experience of weeding our garden got me thinking. Which most everything does. Which brings me to my point.

My mind is a lot like a garden plot. Thoughts of all varieties can grow there, some of them fruitful and nourishing and some of them thorny and nettlesome. My job is to pay attention to what’s growing there and decide which sorts of thoughts are going to stay.

You’ve probably known people who, despite tremendous hardships in life, grow into their old age full of gratitude and generosity. You can usually tell them by the wrinkles around their eyes—they’ve made such a habit of smiling. You’ve probably also known people who have grown bitter over the years and whose chronic scowl has become etched in flesh.

Neither of those outcomes happen by accident. Sure, we’re probably genetically predisposed one way or the other, but blaming it all on genes I think is a cop out. I believe our disposition is due, to a large degree, on whether we have been good gardeners of our mind.

When it really comes down to it, I think tending the mind—choosing what sorts of thoughts we are going to allow to grow there—is the most important responsibility any of us have. The thoughts you cultivate will express themselves in every action you take. Our thoughts, quite literally, determine the shape of the world.

Sometimes people see see themselves as victims of their thoughts, and there may be instances—such as in cases of trauma or biochemical imbalances in the brain—where that’s the case. But for most of us, when our minds are overgrown with all manner of nastiness it’s just because we’ve been lazy. With attention, dedication, and practice, most any of us can cultivate the sort of mind we want to live in. After all, you’re the gardener. You have the power.

But how do we manage the mind? How do we keep the weeds from taking over? Well, that’s where spiritual practices like meditation come in. Meditation cultivates in us the ability to notice thoughts as they appear—like seeds floating by on the breeze—and then let them drift on by rather than landing in the fertile soil of our imagination.

But here’s the tricky thing. We’re all living in a community garden, so to speak. Unless you’re a hermit up on a mountainside (and if you’re reading this, you’re not) you are constantly exposed to what’s growing inside other people’s minds. Just like the solid mass of dandelions that were flourishing in the garden plot next to ours a couple years back, the unhelpful thoughts that have established themselves in someone else’s mind will launch their irksome seeds into the air and some of them are going to land in you. You may as well get used to it.

But here’s another thing. When that happens, you still get to make a choice. You can either resent them (the thoughts, the person) in which case you’re letting those seeds sprout and root inside you, or you can patiently, deliberately, and compassionately go to the garden shed, get the hoe, and start reclaiming the only mental territory you’re responsible for: your own.

I say patiently, deliberately, and compassionately because compassion really is the key. We need to be compassionate with ourselves, because we’re never going to do this perfectly—and that’s okay. And we need to be compassionate with one another because, as I try to remind myself, when someone is launching the seeds of anger, hostility, and judgmentalism it’s because that’s the plot they live in, the plot they themselves have to endure. What could be more unpleasant than that?

Just like weeding our garden, this mind-weeding work is never done. But look at it this way: life’s simple frustrations are simply giving us the chance to practice.

Here’s a case in point. I had just finished my final edits to this post and was just about to click the “Publish” button when WordPress wigged out on me. It lost the final draft. I was very unhappy. And then I got it.

It was just one more chance to practice, and in this case my hoe consisted of facing the facts of the situation and not trying to fight what was. Once I did that, I could return to my task with focus, patience, and serenity.

By the way, just this week I harvested the first of our strawberries. They’re red and juicy and sweet—and they’ve convinced me that all that weeding a few months ago was worth it.

 

Love’s Marathon

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Martin Richard, 8 years old, was one of the victims in the Boston Marathon bombing.

The evening of the bombing at the Boston marathon, I went to my meditation space to pray for the people of Boston. As I sat down on my cushion, something took hold of my mind insisting I pray for those who placed the bombs. Something—I’ll call it Love—was aching for the wholeness of the perpetrators. Something—I’ll call it Love—was asking that I embody it by refusing to exile anyone from its circle of care.

At first I found it offensive. How could I pray for people who do such things, who plot the killing and maiming of innocent people? And yet I sensed there was a wiser spirit at work that I trusted and wanted to heed, and so I did.

As I prayed for them, I seemed to be taken to another plane— to Love’s vantage point—where I could see the tragedy in its entirety. Not only the horror of the casualties, but the tragic brokenness of anyone who could carry out such an abhorrent act. My heart ached for them all.

In my understanding, the fundamental spiritual truth is that all things and all beings are interconnected. We are all part of one Reality—I’ll call it Love—that animates the Universe. Atrocities such as the marathon bombing do violence to that fundamental truth of interconnection by enacting a story of division. They are assaults on Love.

But because Love is the Reality of complete oneness, even those who enact the story of division are not—cannot—be cast out of Love, because there is no “outside” of Love.

Once when I was walking a labyrinth on retreat, I received a teaching. “There are no enemies,” it said. “There are only those who do not know who they are.” There are only those who are not conscious that they are cells, as we all are, in the one body of Love.

And yet it’s hard to hold onto the consciousness of Love when we witness actions that inflict devastating suffering. In the face of attack we tend to go on attack, and thus lend our energy and intention to the very script of violence and division we abhor. In other words, we, too, take on the role of enemy. We, too, forget who we are.

In moments like these I remember that Jesus told people to love their enemies and to pray for their persecutors. There was a time when I understood his words as a command, something we should do if we wanted to be good people (better, that is, than our “enemies”).

But now I see that he wasn’t issuing a command or even admonishing people to claim the moral high ground. He was pointing the way out of the madness, like an illuminated exit sign above the door of a burning theater. “Here is the way out of the nightmare,” he was saying. “Love those who are playing the role of enemy and enacting the violent story of division and, by the very act of loving them, you nullify the story that has them in its grip.”

I wonder what it would be like if, whenever one of these horrific attacks occurred, we all banded together to pray not only for the victims, but just as fervently for the perpetrators—for their wholeness and that they might remember who they truly are. I know that those who engaged in such prayer would be changed. So too, I suspect, would the perpetrators.

I’ve never run a marathon, but I know people who have. I’ve heard how grueling it can be, how intense the training is, how you have to press on through the pain, how you have to keep running just when everything in you is screaming to quit.

And I’ve been thinking how maybe the reason we’re all here on this planet is because we’re in training for Love’s marathon. We’re here to press on through the pain, and the weariness, and the heartache. We’re here to learn how to stay the course of Love—to remain in the truth of Love—no matter what.

I’m pretty certain that whenever any of us manages to cross the finish line of Love’s marathon, we bring Martin’s dream of peace that much closer.

Of Crosses and Crocuses

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of crosses and crocuses
There are two realities available to us: imperial reality and divine reality.

Last week on March 21st Kip and I celebrated our 21st anniversary. These last couple of weeks I’ve been recalling our wedding, which was a small, intimate gathering of immediate family and close friends. The ceremony was nontraditional. We wrote our own vows, friends and family members sang and played music, read poems, did liturgical dance and at the end of the ceremony each person came forward and gave us a blessing as they placed ribbons across our shoulders.

It was a wonderful gift to be showered with the well-wishes of our loved ones, and later Kip wove the ribbons of blessing into a wall hanging that hangs in our home to this day.

Of the many blessings we received that day, two stand out clearly in my mind. The first was, “May you have many crosses to bear.”Continue Reading

Which Dove Will You Feed?

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The power to choose is in your hands.

Several summers ago, when Kip and I had just gotten home from vacation, I went into our second floor office that evening, flipped on the overhead light and startled something that fluttered outside our window. I went over to look and there, lying on the window ledge, was a bird’s nest with two small eggs.

I didn’t know what kind of birds they might be, since the adult that had been sitting on the nest had been startled away when I turned on the light, so the next morning I tiptoed into the room to find out who was roosting there. I was amazed to see a mourning dove sitting on the nest, peering in the window.Continue Reading

Waking Up to the Waking Dream

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Have you ever experienced a moment that felt like a waking dream?

A couple of weeks ago I scheduled a blog post — Unplugged — to be published while I was away on retreat. The following week, when I was back, I went on my website and had a little surprise.

My website displays my most recent blog posts on the homepage, along with the image that corresponds to each of them. For the Unplugged post, I used a photo of an electrical cord, unplugged, lying on the red carpet of our living room.

But somehow on the homepage a different photo appeared: a photo of a white feather (also on our red carpet) which I had used in a collage once in which the feather was representing a writing quill.

Now, I’m sure there is some logical explanation of how that happened, some glitch in the software program that accounts for it, but when weird things like that happen I like to pay attention to them, because often they are communicating something at a symbolic level.

Nighttime dreams, of course, weave elaborate and sometimes bizarre symbolic narratives that reveal something about our lives, our souls, our reality that is outside the view of our conscious mind.  When I take the time to listen to my nighttime dreams and work on them, I find they can be tremendously helpful, and in some instances life-changing.

Every now and then, though, my waking life has bizarre moments too that feel like a dream — in fact I call them waking dream moments — and I frequently work on them much the same way I do my nighttime dreams, pondering their symbolism and interpreting what they might be conveying to me at this point in my life.Continue Reading

Walking Through the Invisible Fence

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Are you ready to take off the collar?

I like to go for hikes in the woods along the creek of the Wissahickon that flows through the northwestern part of Philadelphia. The place where I often enter the park has a large home surrounded by a lot of land where a couple of large dogs roam. Every now and then the dogs get excited when someone walks by and they race toward the road barking ferociously, but because there is an invisible fence around the yard they never go any further.

The way invisible fences work, in case you’re unfamiliar with them, is a wire is buried along the edge of the yard that emits a warning signal and then a shock which is picked up by a small receiver on the dog’s collar. Both of those elements need to be in place for the fence to operate: the wire hooked up to a source of electricity, and the collar on the dog.

In last week’s blog I wrote about limiting beliefs and how we can become more conscious of them so that we can begin to move beyond them. Sometimes that movement will happen naturally. As we become aware of them, the limiting beliefs will just fall away and we will experience freedom.

Sometimes, though, they don’t. Sometimes, even when we know they’re there, our limiting beliefs continue to confine us, like a dog that’s held captive by an invisible fence.Continue Reading

Rainbow in the Night Sky

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Do you believe in rainbows?

At the end of each year and the beginning of a new one, I like to look back and do a year-end review to remind myself of the path I’ve traveled and set my intentions for the year to come. When I was reviewing my journals from this past year, I came across a dream I had last New Year’s Eve that I want to share with you.

I’m in a large gathering of people engaged in a group ritual. Each person is holding a candle, and I and the other adults are looking into the eyes of young people and singing to them. The intent of the ritual is to encourage the younger generation as they face the global challenges before them.

Then something unexpected takes place that wasn’t part of the planned ritual: the younger people reciprocate. Looking into our eyes, they sing for us, letting us know that they recognize that we too inherited warfare and other challenging problems from the past and we have worked with them as best we could. Their kindness and generosity moves me to tears.

Later, I am outside. It is night and the sky is dark. I am standing in a location that feels like the site of old ruins. Then, suddenly and improbably, a rainbow appears across the night sky. It is an incredible sight, and I weep, overcome with gratitude.

We happen to be living in an age in which old structures, systems and beliefs are crumbling into ruins. The world around us can seem dark and foreboding, and we may wonder how those who will come after us will be able to make their way through the world they are inheriting.Continue Reading

Hurricanes, Nightmares and the Ego’s Illusion

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Climate change isn’t simply a political or economic issue. It’s a spiritual issue.

As I write these words, I, along with millions of other people on the East Coast are wondering just how bad Hurricane Sandy will prove to be. Outside my front window I see a gray, steady rain. The branches of the trees are beginning to sway and bend with the increasing force of the wind. I am hoping our old, very large sycamore tree in front of our house can weather this storm.

Last night I had a dream. In the dream I was in West Philly. The sky was clear and sunny, and I thought perhaps all the hype about the storm had been just that: hype. But then I looked to the east and saw an enormous dark funnel cloud moving through the heart of Center City. The glass debris of skyscrapers was flying through the air. I wondered if Independence Hall would also be destroyed, and I considered the symbolic weight, should that happen, of seeing the very icon of the United States’ democracy being ripped apart in the juggernaut of nature’s force. In the dream I knew that the magnitude of the storm was related to global warming. I managed to get on a bus headed safely north of the city, but I and my fellow passengers watched with disbelief and horror as we witnessed our city being destroyed. The devastation we were witnessing paled the attacks of 9/11.Continue Reading