The Whole World is a Garden…

Good Morning Everyone,

I have had a rough week and weekend. I got sick! I have not been sick in about 2 and a half years. I have no idea what I had but I needed a few days to rest and recover. I will also be taking next week off because I will be in Washington, D.C. for a work trip! I am really excited but nervous. This trip is not for training, but I will be evaluating another district. I am excited to meet other supervisors in my field and to learn more about leadership.

As far as sight-seeing, I am not sure how much time I will have to get out and look around. I am so glad that I got to see a lot in my previous trips so I will not be so disappointed about this one if I can’t see everything. I will be flying in early on Sunday and I hope to get to the National Gallery of Art before they close and before my evening meeting with my team!

I will be sure to share whatever adventures that I may have. In today’s post I wanted to share what I recently read in the March/April 2023 issue of Victoria Magazine.

photo credit: Mrs. Shockley 

“Gardening is a sort of metaphor for so many areas of life. What we plant with intentionality, water with love, and cultivate over time is what will grow throughout our lives. Frances Hodgson Burnett said it this way in her book The Secret Garden: “If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden”. 

I often ponder that we do not merely have the potential of cultivating and nurturing beauty through our physical gardens; we also possess the ability to become gardeners of souls, friendship, life. We plant a vision for loveliness, goodness, and love by sowing word of encouragement and wisdom. We water the seeds with expressions of kinship and add sunshine through life-giving affirmation. In relationships, these moments of creativity, personal attention, and integrity foster growth. 

I often told my daughters that I love women, in general, and love being a woman so very much. Women seem to be those who light candles in dark places, bring order from chaos, express love to hearts longing to be noticed, add intelligence to conversation, and give healing and hope to the weary of body or soul. Women are born with the capacity to civilize. In short, as those who plant seeds of inspiration in all the small and large actions of our lives, we have the potential to cause our people or culture to grow more refined, more honoring of others, more respectful of virtue. Women at their best are born gardeners, bringing to life all that is good and beautiful.” 

“Cultivating Seeds of Imagination”, writer in residence: Sally Clarkson. 

I absolutely loved this excerpt from that story! This really resonated with my soul. I do believe that we can plant a seed of loveliness, and goodness. The world has made it so hard to accomplish this lately but reading this gave me a little more hope. Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. I hope you pick up a copy. This is not sponsored but I genuinely enjoyed reading this and hope that you did as well. Talk with you all very soon!

Similar post…. “Beauty from Mom”.