Miracles News

October-December, 2004

Pruning My Mind of the Ego

by Rev. Christine Anderson, O.M.C.

Rev. Christine AndersonCan Holy Spirit get through to me even while I am performing the most menial of tasks? Yes. The Holy Spirit is now teaching me through the avenue of growing tomatoes.

I enjoy the activity of gardening. I find it relaxing and maybe I’m more willing to open to the input of His helpful insights while I’m in the garden. (I can be crabby or stressful in the garden too, it all depends on what kind of story I am making up in my mind.) I know that I can hear His Voice anytime. It is not a matter of location —that is important in real estate. It is a matter of which voice do I want to hear? My ‘real estate’ is living at Home in Heaven with God. With the help of the Holy Spirit, I am working with training my mind to open again to the awareness of Home.

There are some areas where I am more willing to accept His help and other areas where I am putting up a little resistance. “Let me do this little part myself,” I say. Or maybe I’m afraid that if I listen and follow, there will have to be a change that will not be comfortable for me. All I can do, with the help of the Holy Spirit, is do the best I can with letting go of the ego scripts. There is no hurry. This is not a race. We are all going home together.

I need to remember also that Spirit will not judge what I hand over for healing. I am the one who judges. “Oh not this one. I can’t let Holy Spirit see this lollapalooza! I’ll put this one on the bottom of the pile. It can be last.”

When I go to Spirit and ask, ”What would you have me look at and let go of today?” I can trust in His wisdom. He surely knows better than I. I could be mistaken. I have made believing in the illusion a habit for so long that I need a holy Helper to give me the discernment as to what’s real and what’s unreal.

In 2000 I moved back home to live with my mother. Every summer, I put out great effort to impress Mom with my tomato crop. In January she moved to a senior residence, so I don’t have her to impress — what a silly idea! Truthfully though, I am finding less and less value in impressing others. It works better for me to just follow Spirit and stay in the flow of the joy that comes with following Inner Guidance. With mom’s selling of the house, I’ve moved to a new location which has a big yard with a lovely 12 X 12 patch of dirt — my new tomato patch!

How lush were the plants! Why, there was one plant that was 3 feet in diameter! What a proud city farmer I was! I had planted late and had not put the plants in the ground at the same time. They were all at different stages of growth. People in the neighborhood have passed by and made comments about the beauty of the garden. I beam with pride as I reveal to them my secret combination to success — plant food, hormone spray and plenty of water. The tomatoes have really become a nice way to meet my new neighbors.

September rolled around so quickly and I became concerned about what there was left of the growing season. I asked my friend Mary, who was raised on a farm, how much more time I had for these lovely green balls to turn red before the first frost. While I was at it, I bragged about the lushness of my plants. Imagine my surprise when she explained to me that to speed up the ripening of the fruit before the arrival of the cold weather, I would need to remove the sucker branches. I asked her what those were and she told me that they were the branches that didn’t have any tomatoes on them. (These branches take up the energy of the plant and if they are removed, the energy will go to the fruit.)

I had noticed that when I walked through the garden to weed or pick, the branches of the plants stuck out so far that by brushing against them, I would inadvertently break them off. The cages that were supposed to support the plants were leaning over to the ground from the weight of the numerous huge tomatoes.

I looked around with mixed feelings at all that had come about by my own efforts. I was feeling like these plants were getting out of hand, like Mickey Mouse in Fantasia with all of the brooms! I felt discouraged that they were getting damaged. I looked underneath all of the showy vegetation to find long vines with tomatoes on the ground. There were gnats way inside the plants and I was having a hard time reaching the tomatoes to pick them off of the vines. I thought about how that useless vegetation was hiding the fruit from me. By the time I could get to it, the birds and bugs were enjoying their own little banquet. The tomatoes were cracked and useless. They were falling to the ground and rotting.

So I started to consider the suggestion my friend had given me. I made a ‘shift’ in my mind to seeing this situation differently. Instead of being discouraged about breaking branches, I realized it was just part of the weeding out process — removing the unneeded branches. The only remedy was to cut away the sucker branches. After pruning the branches, strong wooden stakes and straw were used to support the plants.

As I opened my mind to receive the lesson of all of this from the Holy Spirit, I got the revelation that there is a parallel in my mind to those sucker branches. For me it is thinking there is value in idolizing form. ACIM tells us that form is the ego’s attempt to prove that separation really happened. Yet it really does seem that there is a you over there, a me over here, and tomatoes in my yard. However, the truth is that we are one Self. Our dense physical bodies and senses seem so convincing. Beyond every form and filling every space is only God’s Love. There is no place where God is not!

Form is neutral in the dream. It only has the meaning I give to it. I have made form special in my life, thinking that the more stuff I had, the safer I would be. Now I am seeing that I become a prisoner of all that I hold on to with an ‘iron tight’ grip. Just like those sucker branches were hiding the tomatoes from me, everything and anything — people, places or things (even tomatoes) that I make more important than remembering that Love is all there is — are cutting off the awareness of the fruits of my Spirit from me — the deep peace, the heavenly Love, the great joy.

Through this lesson it became clearer to me that I can make tomatoes or any form my life special, but is that really what I want? I would rather see myself as a caretaker of form. That is to take much care to be sure to ask for Spirit’s guidance as to the use of form. I want to ask, “What would be truly helpful in the plan of awakening regarding this form that I am considering to take up space in my life? Is this form for the highest good, or is this form just a substitute for the awareness of my spiritual fruits? Am I looking to form to fill a seeming gap that can only be corrected by the master gardener, Jesus, as he gently uproots the false thinking in the garden of my mind?”

It makes sense to me that all of this which seems to be about tomatoes in the dream has a spiritual significance, a parallel somewhere in my mind. If I ask Holy Spirit to give me the lesson, it will come into my awareness. What am I allowing to live in my mind that has no reality to it? How do I spend the major amount of my time? Is it really time well spent with ‘waking up’ as the theme? How much of my life is just fluff! Are my little decorative doodads that I put on shelves growing over the fruits of my Spirit? Am I so absorbed in the ‘stuff’ of the world that I have covered up my Beingness in exchange for nothing? The ‘stuff’ can also show up in my mind as attitudes like, “It has to be my way,” or “I’m not good enough.”

The garden is a good place to learn lessons where I can hear just the way that I need to — planting tomatoes. Holy Spirit knows that in reality there are no tomatoes and He does not judge me for believing that they are real. I am also aware that I don’t have to make growing tomatoes my life’s purpose. The tomatoes are the dream props. He knew that they would be a good vehicle for my learning. Spirit’s Voice is becoming more familiar. The more that I practice listening to and following Inner Guidance, I see that the result is peace, ease and great joy!

There is nothing magic about hearing Holy Spirit’s Voice. It expresses in the form of ideas that are compatible to my repertoire of experiences. Spirit meets in the room of today’s understanding. Anything and everything that has brought me confusion or that I have made special will become a teaching aid with my offering of a little bit of my willingness to Him.

The healing in my mind through this lesson has helped me to open to the awareness of the spiritual abundance within me. (This abundance has nothing to do with form. The use of form, when guided by Spirit, can be used in helping us to wake up.) I am learning to give without fear, to give love freely, without conditions. The ego no longer has my permission to critique, judge or limit the little “love assignments” being given to me by Spirit. (Those little acts and thoughts of kindness that really are helpful, when directed by Spirit. You know, like the phone call, the little note or card, the email, the smile to the cashier at the grocery, extending love via the One Mind we share. These are just to name a few!)

In the dream, I have an abundance of tomatoes and it has been with great joy that I have been giving them away. A blessing goes with every one. It is wonderful to give from a place of abundance and not fear. I had an old ego script that told me if I give, I will have less. That is just a lie and I don’t believe it!

My gardening with Holy Spirit has helped me to realize that anywhere I think I am is a heavenly place as I keep my connection strong and receive His messages of helpfulness all day long!

Rev. Christine Anderson is a Pathways of Light minister who lives in Chicago, Illinois.

© 2004, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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