Ponderings, prunings and plumbers.

The photo above shows the results of 'pruning' and I use the word lightly, as carried out while I was away, on just one of the half a dozen or more lush, leafy, six foot high bushes around my garden.

It amounts to persecution not pruning and I was reminded of that this morning when walking around a neighbour's garden which, despite being pruned had not been reduced to stumps in the way that ours had. And that made me ponder the symbolism of it all, for everything is symbolic and nothing happens without a reason, whether that reason be known or unknown.

Everything is energy and everything is connected and everything which happens in our lives, all manifestations of our material world, reflect what is happening at an inner level. That is what I believe. And interestingly I could see that the elements of being 'savagely cut back,' 'harshly pruned,' 'reduced to the 'bare minimum,' left 'naked, bare, vulnerable and ugly,' by circumstances beyond one's control had been at work in my life on other levels.

'Reduced to the stub of one's self' applied both to person and to plant. If foliage 'dresses' a plant and allows a soft and beautiful 'face' to be presented to the world, then being 'laid bare' means it is taken back to the very substance of itself and in that place, until new growth begins, it will be revealed as the 'least of itself.'

And it is with the prunings that we get to 'see' who we are behind the facade, behind the foliage. Often it is not a pretty sight but unless we know the 'roots' and 'core' of Self then we do not truly know who and what we are. 

The fact that the gardening 'party,' and I am sure there was vigorous enjoyment of the 'laying waste' to leaf and branch, should so reduce my garden when they have not done so in any of the three other gardens in the complex, is also a message that one has happened has meaning beyond mere twig and leaf.

 I can only hope that the savage cutting has not taken the plants back to such a vulnerable state they cannot recover.  But perhaps that too is a message; that we can be 'cut back',  we can be 'reduced' to the 'stump' of ourselves; we can be 'laid painfully bare' and yet we will recover. Although it is a reality, that some do not, whether plant or person.

'It  will grow back,' the head gardener said when he came to inspect the devastation. 'When the rains come it will grow fast.'

And the rains will come in a month or two for windy days and overcast skies portend the return of the wet season. I wonder if those rains equate with the tears shed in recent months and if it is tears, the 'rain' of our soul, which waters, nourishes and restores. I am sure it is. And if so then I have had and at times continue to have, to a lesser degree, my own 'wet season' of mammoth proportions. And that means my 'growth' will be fast and it will be strong.

Love sends 'shoots' bright-green from the most mutilated 'twigs' of self. My garden will rise again from the dust  and cut of suffering and so too shall I for that is the nature of life.

On a more practical note, beyond sorting out the phone at the guesthouse which, of course, would not recognise the pre-paid phone card and which then required time spent ringing the telephone company to rectify the error, I am busy trying to organise a plumber.

It is a watery task and fits the circumstance given that water represents emotions and we have a need to remove a potential danger and make some small repairs. More symbolism.

It seems, according to the electricians who were working here recently that we have a second hot-water geyser in the roof which is not connected to the power. We actually knew that. What we did not know was that it is full of water and that is dangerous and so the geyser needs to be emptied and removed.

At a symbolic level I am pondering what massive 'collection' of emotions there may be in my 'mind' which threatens to be dangerous if not emptied and removed. I would have thought I did quite a bit of emptying in recent months but shall be pleased to see the problem on the material level removed before gallons of filthy water come cascading into my life.

I am also hoping the plumber will be able to replace the missing tap in the guest toilet. It has been missing since we moved in and according to Andrew, was missing for years before that. It takes a while to get things done in Africa but I have said that before.

And we need the plumber to fit new shower heads to the guest-house bathrooms. Greg fitted them here but we did not realise, until after we purchased the shower heads, that the pipes at the guesthouse are a different size and will not take the new fitting. There are no other shower heads to be found so the task will be to change the pipes, if indeed such a thing is possible.

The other development is the arrival of our new stove which was brought down from site the other day. We will need to get the electricians back to fit it because they have created a two-phase connection system between the cooker and the generator so it is not a matter of merely plugging in our new stove. I am just hoping that it will be more energy efficient and resolve once and for all any issues with 'overload' when the generator is running.