Tending to the Weeds in My Garden

My native flower and local weeds garden, a photo by niiicedave on Flickr.

In my favorite Tue night AA mtg, we read Step 7. Perfect timing to compliment a session I had with my healer that very afternoon.

A wise man in our group and someone I am honored to call my friend, spoke about the character defects of Step 7 as the weeds in his garden. They'll always come up and it's the ones that we don't tend to that overtake the garden if not given the right care. Step 7 is humbly asking God to remove them ... or at least to have them be manageable !

I looked at this helpful analogy in a variety of ways in relationship to my healing session about poisoning ground --- how fitting if we're talkin' weeds here !

The garden that is me has both flowers and weeds -- every plot of soil that grows us humans contains it all. That very soil that I have been trying to cultivate and grow myself over the years has suffered some damage from what was mixed in with my dirt ... that would be the tainted soil of my family and all of its dysfunction. I was raised in muddy ground, steeped in secrecy, criticalness, unavailability, chaos and with things hidden all over. I knew as a kid that my garden had all sorts of weeds that didn't feel like they belonged and whenever I wanted to name what was wrong, I was halted in my tracks. It was dangerous to say the Truth, to speak about the Reality that was right in front of my eyes --- a gaping, choking weed on one end with deeply entangled roots on the other.

My character defects arise from this very soil I speak of and, over the years, are complicated by and are the grundge underneath my alcoholism. Once we begin to work the program of AA, just putting down the bottle is not enough and does not magically eliminate these defective weeds ! If anything, they just become more magnified because they're no longer blurred by the booze. And, they are the very thing that will ruin the garden we're trying to re-build and grow soberly if they're not properly attended to.

So this is where the big G comes in: God the Gardener with the Master Plan. If I have worked my Steps 1-3 and now can have some faith in a power greater than myself, then start cleaning up my house in Steps 4-5, I can become ready to have these weeds removed. I have to do this humbly. I have to be willing. Most importantly, I have to trust God. If I try to do my own gardening without guidance, I am a weed whacker with blinders on, just trying to plow through everything. And the weeds will just come back and sometimes with full force, overtaking not just my garden but impacting others' gardens.

This is where the power of my healing session comes in. The infestation of my overgrown defective weeds into the gardens of others is my own poisoning ground in action. If I am not awake and conscious of this, I blame them and their gardens for messing up mine ! There's the self-centered fear of Step 7 rearing its ugly head !

So my work, as I see it today, is to be aware of the weeds in my garden. To tend to each with the same care as I give to the flowers. To ask God to help remove them and to ask for God's guidance to keep my ground fertilized, watered, nurtured, and nourished. To be awake to not only my garden but the gardens of others. To want the same beauty and growth and aliveness for my fellow human. To not taint the ground of another with whom I am in relationship. To keep my petals toward the shining light of the Universe that only wants me to flourish.