Yahooooo! It’s that time of year for us- Garden planning time! Today I gave my arm a workout by inventorying all our seeds- opening and closing the dozens of ziplock bags I keep leftover seeds in to check what remains from last year to use this year. I need to start somewhere with using my left and right hand together if I hope to be shoveling manure by April!

For 2013, staff goddess and beloved of the honeybees, Laura Carpenter, has been given the assignment by the Angels and Elementals to design the main vegetable garden at Green Hope Farm. Having Laura in charge of creating the design with the Angels and Elementals of this central circular garden feels very right and very auspicious to me.

Bringing Laura into the design process reminds me of twenty five years ago when the Angels and Elementals had me do classes for a number of years to share how I co-created gardens with them. This was back in the 80’s and early 90’s, a time when there was a great deal of interest, at least in our region, in Angels and Elementals. The classes drew all sorts of people in a happy and eclectic mix of cultures and personalities. I originally did the classes as a one day workshop but then found the fun of the class was in meeting a number of times. This was because of the stories people returned to class with after they got rolling with the project of designing their gardens with help from “upstairs.”.

Even the skeptics found themselves in a state of amazement, and this was because in-between classes the Angels and Elementals would use all sorts of inventive, funny even outrageous ways to demonstrate that they did indeed exist and wanted very much to work with the class participants.

My favorite story, which I know I have mentioned in the blog before, involved a woman who thought the class a bit of a fool’s errand with fairies the stuff of children’s stories. I told her at our first meeting that there was nothing the Elementals enjoyed more than proving they were there to someone who was at least open to seeing the signs. I encouraged her to ask for exactly what she needed from these masters of manifestation and then to sit back and watch the show.

After that first class she drew a line in the sand and declared to the Elementals if indeed they existed that she would only proceed with the class and an open mind if the Elementals sent her free of charge all the ingredients for a garden.

The next class she had all of us on the edge of our seats as she reported how since this pronouncement she had been given unasked a dump truck load of well rotted manure, a woman’s entire garden of perennial plants and all the seeds for an enormous vegetable garden. After this experience, her life turned in a new direction and she became a force to be reckoned with as she painted and sold hundreds of gorgeous oil paintings of Angels and Elementals as well as gardened with them in a wildly beautiful way.

Hearing each person’s stories and seeing the unique designs they co-created with the Angels and Elementals was wonderful. It was the beginning of my understanding of how unlimited the nature of our co-creative efforts could be. There were just so many different designs with such unexpected combinations of flowers, herbs and vegetables. The sky was truly the limit as many designs went airborne with all kinds of superstructures. These classes and my own experience in receiving gorgeous new twists in design each season helped me let go of the gardens each fall, knowing in full confidence that the following year’s designs would be soul satisfying in new but deeply comforting ways.

I usually taught these classes in late winter or very early spring. Once the growing season got underway, many people invited me to see their gardens and how they had translated their designs into form. I loved these visits to their gardens. Elementals in particular have such a zesty sense of humor and the field trips were always chock full of funny stories and funny happenings. The gardens themselves were incredibly vibrant, robust and spectacular. This often left the participants in shock and awe.

One visit to a Vermont garden created by a woman in the class, I wandered her incredibly exuberant and lush almost tropical garden. The woman showed me around her paradise with her hands joyfully in the air in celebration. The garden felt so inviting that I wanted to settle down under the bean fences she had woven and just watch the entire season unfold. As with so many of these gardens, everything was super sized as was her amazed grin! It was all such a fantastic reminder that the Angels and Elementals WANT to work cooperatively with all of us to heal our shared planet.

And now, Laura will see where the Angels and Elementals lead her! Will it be a cold cabbage summer of many brassicas or a fiery one of eggplant and jalapeño? What plants have an affinity with her? Which Flowers will mix with what vegetables? My time apart mending my arm has shown me that I must pass the baton to others to help manage this bigger entity that is Green Hope Farm. I am so happy to have beloveds here ready to share the baton and dig with it!

A new generation looks to co-create a new earth and I want to help! Inside and out, happy expansive changes are unfolding here at the farm with our many ever present Angelic and Elemental guides there to support us. So many new people fill the office and surprisingly, after twenty years with an almost all women staff, we have a lot of men here. The new crew of Miguel and company have many great ideas for how to run things. It is an adventure to begin to be a part of all they have organized in my absence.

For me, it was also such a pleasure to sit with Laura and begin to flesh out other gardens while Laura begins to plan the main one. Laura and I sat in a cornucopia of seed catalogues, pens and papers and found ourselves lit from within with joy as we headed towards spring and all things green and flowering.

SOME THOUGHTS IF YOU WANT TO WORK ON YOUR GARDEN WITH THE ANGELS AND ELEMENTALS

1) Know that the Angels and Elementals want very much to work with you and will make this as easy as they can.

2) Your imagination is the bridge for you to receive their ideas and guidance. Trust what you imagine!

3) Remember that Angels are the ones who design all form and Elementals are the ones that manifest all form. This means the Angels will give you the design for your gardens and then the Elementals will help you with all tasks related to planting and managing the gardens. I call both groups into all my meetings and ask for their help with everything.

4) As you meet with the Angels and Elementals, explain what you hope to do and then look to them for shape, layout, vegetable and flower choices as well as seed varieties. They know the kind of weather this growing season will bring to your micro-climate. Going with their choices will save you much disappointment. Even if you want melons because you love them, if the Angels and Elementals are not pushing melons, assume they know more about what kind of weather lies ahead than you do.

5) If you need something for your garden and don’t know where to get it, ask the Elementals to help. They can manifest anything and can arrange for you to find what you are looking for somehow or other. Once they asked me to make a copper pyramid formed to the same angle as the pyramids at Giza. Before I could even freak out about the unlikelihood of me being able to do any of this, they sent an enormous sheet of copper my way and a band of roofers that were so excited at this weird project of making a miniature copper pyramid. Every Flower Essence at Green Hope Farm goes under this pyramid at least once before heading off to you thanks to the Elementals (And what does this pyramid do? It clears and amplifies the positive energies of the Flower Essences).

6) Relax! This is wonderful healing work but perfection is not a relevant idea. This is about creating community and working together creatively AND joyously. It can be fun and funny since Elementals love to lighten everything with the leavening of humor! Expect to be entertained! Expect to discover how loved you really are!

Amaryllis on the kitchen table there to help.