FEED THE GARDEN

Welsh Crywth and phighorn

I was horrified this morning by some political news, and I was going to write something about it in my diary, but prompted by something a friend said, I pleaded with the Lord to give me some guidance about this, and I was given it.  Feed the garden, not the weeds.

This principle is long familiar to me. As a student of meditation with the Vedantists, I soon learned that one wants to encourage the establishment of the Divine within oneself by putting your mind in the lap of The Mother.

So, let us all go toward the Divine and put our minds there, and not on the nightmare of our political situation, shall we?

There are no female saints whose feast day occupies either today or tomorrow, so I have settled on Saturday's lady, who turns out to be Saint Cointha (aka "Quinta" or "Cynthia"), a martyr who died being dragged by her ankles through the streets of Alexandria, during the persecutions of the Emperor Trajanus Decius in about 249 b.c.  The brutal Trajanus Decius registers with barely a blip on my radar. It is the holiness of the martyred girl to which we aspire, right?

Cointha is sometimes depicted with a horse in the picture, since she was dragged by one, her ankles tied to it somehow. I wasn't able to find many pictures of her, though. Her feast day is February 8th, and that is about all we know of her.

There are so many of these female saints who passed into the mist of time with barely a whisper of a history! I have often wondered why so little fanfare is given them, while rather more of the male saints have some history to hang onto. I have often wondered why.

At any rate, Christian chronicles don't dally too long with the goings on of kings and princes. Men like Trump are a dime a dozen in antiquity and they provide no inspiration. The saints, however, are another matter, aren't they?

What are we supposed to get from the scant information about Saint Cointha? She gave everything she had for the faith, and I suppose that is enough to know.

My guru, the Swami Swahananda, used to advise me to compare myself and my attributes to those of the Lord. In comparison to the Divine Mother, my gifts of spirit and character pale in comparison. So we shouldn't congratulate ourselves much, if at all, right? Even comparing oneself to the saints is an exercise in humiliation, for the most part.

My mood was greatly improved by the wonderful reminders of today. Feed the garden, not the weeds.

Also, it occurs to me that, instead of getting wrapped around the axle about this era's version of Trajanus Decius and letting him destroy my peace, it is infinitely more appropriate to celebrate and imitate the Lord's creative flow through the creative projects I so love. After all, even the saints need some artistic outlet, now and then. Think of  Hildegard of Bingen and those of her ilk.

The day started with serious mourning and weeping but transmuted itself into the happy creation of a Saint Patrick's day shawl with a crochet pattern and some yarn a friend gave me. In the tween times, I began to write a song - the first in many years. Musical instruments will follow. And sheet music. And things of that persuasion.

During ALL of it; the mourning, the weeping, the writing, the painting, the crochet and the music, my mind is in the lap of The Mother, and we are celebrating.

I hope all of you can transform your sorrows into celebrations today and every day.

God bless us all.

Silver Rose
Sannyasini Kaliprana

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