Greetings, Friends – This blog post is part 3 of 3 of celebrating The Inner Garden book’s birth into the world. “At Last” shares where you can tangibly obtain the book & card deck and “Let’s Work Together” shares highlights from our in-person book conversation at The Bunnell Street Art Center in May… here I share more about the book while also highlighting the process in which it came forth.
The Inner Garden book is a culmination of patchwork-quilted experiences from my own life woven into channeled information from my guides. There is both information that would be considered ‘new’ in that it hasn’t yet been illuminated by the scientific process and there is also information that has been around for thousands of years (Ayurveda & more) that many of us already know in our hearts – but is not reinforced within the collective’s discourse. So, in many ways, The Inner Garden is like hanging out with a wise-beyond-their-years dear friend who supports you in being the person you most enjoy being, reminds you how to hear your inner truths, and encourages you to take the next best steps for yourself that cultivates your overall well-being. A friend that also weaves examples from The Matrix, Harry Potter, David Attenborough, and more to make topics even more accessible and understandable.
If I were you, I would have so many questions about the way in which this book has come forth! What does it mean to channel? What does it mean that you channeled the book? How do you do it? Is it hard to do? How do you trust the information that comes through? (Details for future blog posts)
I have had very few people ask me about my channeling and I know very few people personally that utilize this gift using clairaudience (enough that I have not felt like a lone wolf). We are all channels, most just don’t realize to use this capacity intentionally. I think of humans as being radio towers… picking up and receiving thoughts and ideas all of the time that match the vibrational frequency of our being. Every individual has unique ways of best expressing their ‘channel’ AND this can be enhanced by tapping their intuitive gifts.
My present understanding is that our individual ways of accessing our intuitive gifts can vary significantly so it does make it more challenging to compare notes, but this is certainly a conversation I would love to encourage. Mr. Rogers has said, “Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that’s mentionable can be manageable.” I can relate to the discomfort of being curious about something I don’t understand and not knowing how to ask someone about their experience… for fear of hurting their feelings or being insensitive in any way. And I also know that when we are courageous enough to ask questions with love in our hearts, authentically share our experiences, and invite respectful conversation, that it gives others more ‘permission’ to do the same – and typically enhances understanding, compassion, and love for all involved.
I share a bit about my journey into discovering my clairaudience gifts in The Inner Garden’s Preface, but what I most want to convey again at this time is that we ALL have intuitive gifts that could enable each of us to access expanded consciousness and information… that when used in heart-aligned ways could enhance our individual, family, community, and planetary well-being.
Doing the inner work to cultivate your intuitive gifts takes courage, a daily practice, a willingness to choose your heart’s guidance over what ‘one should do’ in each moment… herculean feats on some days, yet a series of small choices when added up… ‘an infinite succession of presents’ as Howard Zinn says below. These small choices in each of our days offer us a great deal of power to create the lives we most want to live and the world in which we want to create it.
The Inner Garden book is an invitation to intentionally take these small steps and to reinforce putting your attention where you most want to direct it… it is so loud and distracting in our chaotic political / social / + environments and it truly takes work to quiet your own mind to hear what your heart is encouraging you to do. The Inner Garden offers a hand to hold, words to soothe and guide you as you develop and/or enhance your own daily practices…and illuminates physical phenomenon that science has yet to capture. It invites you to fall in love with your own phenomenal self while supporting you in your own self-discovery.
While doing the daily work of tending your own well-being might not feel like meaningful ‘action’ that is helping the world at large be a more peaceful place, it is important to remember that this type of action is foundational and revolutionary… supporting an elevated human existence… and as Ilarion (Kuuyux) Merculieff would say, ‘one that supports humanity in continuing to exist on this planet’. Does that begin to convey its importance?!
The Collaborative, Non-Linear Creation Process
I first got the nudge from my guides to write a book in 2020 while I was sitting in the car, waiting to pick up my kiddos from school. I was given a title suggestion and that the book should have 18 chapters… that it would have something to do with reconnecting with Mother Earth’s gifts and how to symbiotically partner with her.
The writing I was able to do was typically in 30-60 minute sessions while I was in between my part-time job and waiting to pick up kids from school… using my google docs on an iPad with a blue-toothed keyboard. It was not written linearly, but in pockets here and there… typically helping to illuminate something I had recently experienced, read, or had curiosity about.
In November of 2022, I was encouraged to reach out to an artist… that the book would benefit from having an oracle deck and that the art could introduce each chapter of the book. I thought I was being encouraged to make an 18-card, card deck (Ha!). I had a few pages of chapter 1 written and I included this in my communication to Brianna Lee… she had immediately come to mind when I was envisioning the type of art I wanted to accompany this project.
Bri and I knew one another from Homer, AK, primarily acquaintances from living in a small town – and I had purchased a painting from her in 2011 (that was very meaningful to me). I was concerned she would think I was crazy and was pleasantly surprised when she positively received my email and wanted to learn more.
What transpired was a couple years of sharing chapters as they were written, Bri sharing paintings as they were painted, FaceTime chats to check-in, sporadic updates to the number of paintings & types of artwork needed (the card deck evolved to a 72-card, card deck), and watching this resource come to life before our eyes. Bri mentioned that the process was like putting together a puzzle… lots of pieces that, when connected, showed a larger picture. We did not know the details, but trusted in the unfolding. Sharing this experience with Bri enabled me to more fully trust in the process… not to mention loosen up a bit and do more celebrating.
What I have learned from this collaborative process with Bri is that there is no better way of collaborating than working in ways that celebrate the unique gifts of each individual… and that surrendering to the process of stepping into the unknown is way easier when you have a friend’s hand to hold.
You can learn more about our journey, The Inner Garden, and our book celebration event at these recent posts:
The Inner Garden
The Inner Garden framework builds on the foundations of Ayurveda and the principle that we each have a unique constitution (Inner Garden / gut microbiome), personality, and higher purpose. This physical, emotional, and spiritual consitution can be brought forward with intention and the support of the Inner Garden resources. As communicated by one of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Potowatami colleagues, “An educated person knows their own gifts and how to give them to the world.” When you courageously learn about your specific needs and ways of being and how to best tend them, you are most able to create the life you most want to live.
Jill Bolte Taylor, neuroanatomist, TedEx excerpt
The above excerpt from Jill Bolte Taylor highlights the phenomenal capacity we each have to access expanded consciousness on a daily basis. She is a neuroanatomist who experienced a stroke and lost access to the left-hemisphere of her brain… thus exposing her to what the right side of the brain offers.
P.S. This post brought to you by Yo-Yo Ma & Alison Krauss’s version of, “Simple Gifts“
While creating the space and practices to quiet your mind and listen to your heart’s guidance is by no means ‘SIMPLE’… probably one of the harder things to do… this post refers to ‘simple gifts’ in that we are all born with intuitive gifts, they are inherently within us (they hang out in the right hemisphere of the brain)… ready to be discovered, used, and celebrated. And as Jill Bolte Taylor says in her excerpt, “I believe that the more time we spend choosing to run the deeper inner-peace circuitry of our right hemispheres, the more peace we will project into the world, and the more peaceful our planet will be.”
Cheers to cultivating your simple gifts!
Megan