WE ARE CREATORS
Updated: Jul 27, 2020
We learn in Genesis, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth... And God said, Let there be light: and there was light." Wouldn't it be easy and convenient if all we had to do to create something was to speak it into existence?
That mode would have saved me a lot of work with this garden project. ๐ but I think the Bible is leaving out a few of the steps God took in creating the world. Through lots of thought and study I have come to learn the process by which we (even God, I believe) create.
PROCESS OF CREATION
I found that I went through these 3 phases with this garden creation:
IDEA PHASE,
PLANNING PHASE,
TAKE ACTION PHASE
I just found some notes from a book I read a couple of years ago, Remembering Wholeness by Carol Tuttle, and I love the way the process of creation is laid out in that book. There are some steps here that I would really want to incorporate so it was important to me to fit them into my basic 3 phase understanding. The steps Carol suggested are:
1. Desire
2. Ask God
3. Believe you can have it
4. Let Go and Allow
5. Express Gratitude
This post has a more streamlined checklist of the steps to create a potager garden: https://www.myjourneytobecome.com/post/how-to-create-a-potager-garden if that's what you're looking for. If you're interested in the creation aspect, keep reading! IDEA PHASE ๐ก
1. Desire
You must know what you want. If you think about the way things are created, the idea is first formed in the mind. I had an idea of what features I wanted to include in my garden. From prior gardening experience in my old home's garden, I didn't want to step in a muddy weedy mess to gather veggies from the garden after a rainstorm. And so, I knew I wanted pathways.
I decided also from prior experience that too much soil area meant hours of weeding, which my lifestyle now doesn't lend much time for. So this understanding meant I needed less soil. And so I started to have visuals in my mind of doing more vertical gardening since I would have less soil. This would also make more space for pathways.
I love Pinterest as a tool in the idea phase. I found a garden style that had already been created that was close to what I was envisioning and needing based on my requirements and goals and decided to use it to guide my creation.
PLANNING PHASE
2. Ask God
I imagine there are those who skip this step but are still able to create. Personally, having had the experience creating both with God and without, I would always choose to have His guidance in the process. He can see the end from the beginning. He knows what we are capable of and what we need to learn, and is able to give us the learning opportunities we need to develop the skills to create what we desire. This can make the process more streamlined.
WHY do we need to ask for blessings rather than just work hard towards what you want to achieve and hope the Lord wants to help? ๐ฝ
"If we realized blessings as a direct result of dedication, we would lose sight of the hand of the Lord in the blessings we received."
-(Drawing on the Powers of Heaven - Grant Von Harrison)
And you probably noticed that the last step of creation is gratitude so seeing God's hand in the fabric of your creation will help you direct your gratitude.
โญIf you want a more inspiring experience and inspired outcome, ask God to help you create.
3. Believe you can have it
In the planning phase, you gather resources, skills, examples of others' creations, and you devote yourself to study and research to make sure you completely understand how to accomplish this desire you have to bring something into existence. By immersing yourself in all this planning, you are slowly giving yourself reason to believe that you can have your desire.
In my garden creation experience, I found that I didn't have to try hard to believe I could have it. After I had a clear vision of what I wanted, I knew it would just take action steps to get me there. Take Action phase:
4. Let Go and Allow
This step is hard for a mover and a shaker like myself. I love checklists, especially when I get to check the boxes! But from what I read in the "Remembering Wholeness" book, it is synchronicity that explains how this step works. Synchronicity is defined as odd or unusual events that happen at unexpected times, but seem to coordinate to create desired outcomes. If you're living in synchronicity, you're living intuitively, moving forward when you have a natural motivation to do so, and passing up opportunities that feel like drudgery or feel forced. If a particular action goal feels clunky, you may just need to back up, try a different action or wait until the timing feels better. Sometimes its necessary to move back into the planning phase and make sure you truly believe you can achieve your goal.
Most of the actions I took with my garden were done in synchronicity. Some were super hard work and required long hours but I was motivated and the work seemed to flow.
Year 1/Trial 1
As I moved from planning into the action phase, I actually got out in the tilled garden and made the shapes of the beds and moved the dirt so I could get a good visual. We were only able to till 1/2 the garden the year I had this garden idea come to me, because of a dirt hill in the way, so I eyeballed the shapes the first year and did half the design. I was so afraid of the weeds I knew were coming from our unfinished yard, so I threw down weed fabric in the pathways, covering most of the bed shapes and put a few pieces of flagstone and pavers we had laying around since I knew this was temporary.
It was pretty much an eye sore, with weed fabric free floating and exposed along the sides of my geometric shaped beds. After a one week vacation, we returned to a complete weed fest. Weeds were pushing up under the weed fabric, and crawling up the sides of my beds. We got squash bugs and the tomatoes got some weird fungus. It was beyond hope.
Year 2/Trial 2:
After much learning-the-hard-way with weed fabric and its capabilities (or lack thereof without a good covering) from our year 1 sad half-garden, I took what I gleaned from my failed creation and decided to carry on the good ideas and leave behind the bad.
This time my husband was building a patio so the tilling responsibility fell on me. Through necessity, I learned how to operate the 200 lb 70+ year old tiller we inherited from my grandpa. The bright side was that I built pretty tight arm muscles within an hour.
My handy husband, Cody, came up with the bright idea of using a measuring tape and landscape spray paint to get it to his perfectionist standard...for which I'm so grateful in matters like this!
I shaped the beds and made sure the garden mirrored itself. We then put the drip lines in. Also grateful for my husband's great sprinkler and landscaping background when he suggested that we trench and bury the lines and bring them up to the center of each bed.
Time to put the borders in. We went with a plastic Terrace Board because it was mold-able, enabling me to make curves and corners.
Next we (mostly I, with help from the kids on filling up the wheelbarrow) dumped what seemed like at least 50 wheelbarrows full of chat (crushed travertine in our case) into the pathways. We found our chat at Black Butte Mining
I then got down on my hands and knees and spread the chat around until it was even and raked it smooth. The last step for the pathways was to wet the chat down and compact it. (My desert city *synchronistically* ๐ had a rainstorm right before this step).
Then I planted my garden starts (very few of which actually made it??) and seeds and started to watch my garden grow and scope out the weeds. See my weed- free post for more on that: https://www.myjourneytobecome.com/post/keeping-the-mind-garden-weed-free
5. Express Gratitude
I felt so grateful when I was finally able to put a check mark by the hope I had written 2 years earlier on my hope list. โคต
"Create a beautiful garden space with little maintenance and be able to eat food we grow in our yard" Every time I step outside and look across my yard, my heart grows a few sizes and I am drawn to go walk my pathways, pick some peas, pull a few weeds and check on my plants.
If you understand the Law of Attraction, it will make sense that staying in a gratitude energy will bring more of your desires to you, especially when following these steps.
Now it's your turn to create something in your life:
Idea phase:
What desires do you have that you haven't acted on yet? I have heard and believe that DESIRE is God's way of reminding us of what we planned or pledged to do in this life back in the spirit world. Settle on one of your desires- probably the strongest one that you will be most motivated to accomplish and get practicing! You toss it around for a while and do a little research to see what it would take, and if you are really motivated to make it happen, you move into...
Planning phase:
Get to know what you want in the idea phase- make a list of everything you want to see come to fruition. Then move into step 2, ask God to help you achieve that desire, and ask him to place learning opportunities and information in your path, and to open doors. Now look for others' ideas for inspiration or brainstorm your own inspiration.
Take Action phase:
This phase will flow smoothly if you remember to act on inspiration. Taking action is where many people give up on moving forward toward seeing their desire become a reality. Goal setting and mentors come in handy here.