Getting Back to the Garden

In 1969, poet/singer/songwriter, Joni Mitchell wrote one of the first true anthems for the Baby Boomers grand Spiritual Awakening called, “Woodstock”.

This inspired song was based on the stories that her then-boyfriend, Graham Nash, told her about the “Love-In Music Festival” held at Yasgur’s Farm in Woodstock, NY earlier that year.

Her riveting lyrics echoed a call back to the peace of our Authentic Selves and away from the destruction of life during the Vietnam War. Her powerful words became the foundation of an awakening cry to reclaim our true spirit. Her beckoning plea carried these key phrases:

“I’m here to set my soul free

But I feel like I’m a cog in something turning ’round and round.

And maybe it’s the time of year,

Or maybe it’s the time of man.

And I don’t know who l am

But life is for learning .

We are stardust,

We are golden,

We are Billion-Year-Old Carbon,

And we’ve got to get ourselves

Back to the garden!”

Our true spiritual journey is a walk away from what we have learned to trust all of our lives. It takes us down a new and uncharted path to a blind road that begins with several questions designed to help us remember who we really are, why we are here and how we were supposed to live our lives of passionate purpose.

How do we remember this purpose?

The mass consciousness of the world puts us into a state of “safe forgetfulness” early on in life to see if we have the courage to wake up to this true purpose. We come into this world being surrounded by an “adopted belief system” meant to protect and guide us by our “tribe”. We are taught by our parents, our schools, our religion , our community and by our society what we should believe, who we should trust and what to expect by learning to “pre-judge” others.

Our judgment system is designed initially to both protect us and to insure the continuance of a community value system. It portends to maintain and keep order in what would be a chaotic world for such innocent beings at this early stage of life. This system has a “faulty design” meant for us to overcome later in life with a leap of faith and a courage of conviction.

These “initially protective” beliefs are then formed into our operating values.

Our values and adopted (or inherited) beliefs then become the catalyst to drive our thinking and behavior . Our thinking then drives our words to manifest a life that sustains an old system of safety and security. We are inadvertently then trained to maintain the “status quo” and remain in the safety of “forgetfulness”.

It is not until we “come of age” that we have the opportunity to question what we have actually been taught. If we are lucky, at some point when things “just don’t feel right” about our lives. This questioning of “I feel off purpose” invites our heart to challenge our mind with one question….”whose thoughts are these really”?

We then realize way down the road that those old thoughts and beliefs became the building blocks to creating our life, our career, our relationships, our parenting behavior . They became the cornerstone of creating many faulty thoughts and created most of our life’s many lessons to be overcome.

Our Spiritual Journey is move away from what has been comfortable and safe in order for us to grow, expand and challenge our old truths. Our true empowerment then lies in allowing our heart’s divine wisdom to lead us to “the promised land” of our originally designed journey before we ever came here. It is a discarding of our patterned behavior that had been led by our mind and ego.

When we understand this, we realize that indeed….it was our mind and ego that kicked ourselves OUT OF THE GARDEN of our heart.

This new and undefined path initially feels “unsafe” to walk. It goes against every fiber of our being to take the first step onto this unknown path.

It is like learning to walk all over again without the safety of knowing our parents be there to lovingly catch us and protect us from harm.

Our new journey takes us to a place where had long forgotten. It a place that we lost during our formative years when our connection to our joy, our divine imagination and our innocence were unknowingly stripped away from us. Our “protectors” innocently took us down this initial path through their desire to mold us, protect us and to place their own dreams planted into our minds. Our “new parents” in this unknown walk then become trust, our instincts and surrender. They guide us into uncharted waters where comfort, safety and predictability are gone. It is a walk in faith where we allow our Divine Heart to lead us.

This path takes courage and confidence to walk into this unknown future. It is the magical path to return to THE GARDEN OF OUR HEART. It will only be here where we can truly reconnect to our natural talents, our core instincts and our passionate joy all once again. There are many maps on how to get there and many advisers to show the way, but a true Spiritual Empowerment Coach who has made this journey can offer you ways to help you guide yourself back to this natural state.

Our Divine Heart is the key. It alone knows the path we agreed to take before arriving here. It must be invited to unseat the ego and the mind. Only our Divine Heart knows and reveals our brilliance and reminds us how precious we are in each and every moment of life.

Our Divine Heart whispers to us daily that we are indeed stardust, we are golden, our physical make-up is 5 billion-year-old carbon, but only our Spiritual Heart can take us back to the GARDEN.

Thank you for reminding us of this great and forgotten path over 40-years ago Joni. You are, and continue to be, a Divine Messenger of our Great Awakening!