We honored to share this guest blog post by the lovely Megan Lendman on plants, healing and storytelling. Megan is a graduate of our Certified Sacred Women's Circle Creatrix Training and an incredibly gifted healer. This will be a three part series coming out every Friday over the next month so be sure to check back each Friday! Please comment below and let us know your thoughts!
Hello! My name is Megan Lendman and lately I have felt called to share some of my many stories about plants and my relationship with them. My hope is that in the coming tales, you find that you can relate to the joys and the struggles of connecting with plants, for there is much value that I have found in cultivating these relationships and I'm here to encourage anyone to do the same. To begin, I'll tell you the story of how I came to become the caretaker of Glenwood Gardens.
As many stories begin, there was a boy that I was head over heels for. Thankfully, he was head over heels for me too. We had already been dating for three years before we moved in together into a house in the same neighborhood at his grandparents'. We were renting the place, so my garden in the backyard was full of temporary herbs and the perennials that were already established. Every other Saturday morning we began to visit his grandparents for coffee and this was my first introduction of a very special garden, which I have come to know as Glenwood Gardens. My first visit to this garden was magical and I felt as though I had entered another world entirely, somewhat like Narnia. Living in a city, it's hard to imagine greenery like this existed before I witnessed it myself. His grandmother spoke to me sweetly of the plants she had brought to this place and how she tilled the ground from grass into this sanctuary. There were several varieties of Japanese maple with their delicate leaves and unique twisted trunks and branches. There were so many ferns of all sizes and colors. She told me that many of the ferns had cross-pollinated and so there were ferns here that may not exist anywhere else. Some of the plants were meant only for the birds and the bees and were out of reach to any tending by her hand. Sometimes at night in the height of summer, when everyone was asleep, I would use the secret entrance in back and just sit in the garden enjoying the sounds of this small forest. At that point in time, I never expected this garden would soon count on me to keep the balance.
After a few years of getting to know the land and his grandparents, time and mortality came. With some magical aligning of the universe, their home became ours, and that garden became my charge. As a young yet interested plant caretaker, I was understandably nervous about this task. But I knew that the plants knew how much I cared about them. They knew how many times I had sought solitude and companionship with them over the years. They knew that I was the perfect person to begin a new era in their domain. How do I know that they knew? I could feel peace in my heart and a steadiness in my hands as I began to work in the land. To keep an ecosystem like this alive in the city, there is work to be done weeding, pruning, and preparing the beds for the coming seasons. This garden has so much to teach me and with the guidance of light and love, I am willing to learn how to be a luminous gardener.
-Part two will be revealed next Friday on the GoddessCeremony Blog so stay tuned!-
~Megan Lendman
About the Author~
Megan Lendman comes from a long line of women healers, both indigenous and immigrant. As a Certified Sacred Women's Circle Creatrix, Professional Photographer, Luminous Gardener, and through her family's naturopathic practice The Remedy House, she holds space for people to be their authentic selves and heal from the inside out. She is based in Grand Rapids, MI and her services are available around the world. Find out more about her at www.meganlendmanphotography.com or her instagram @meganlendmanphoto
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