Different Sorts of Babies

These days I don’t dream very often. The one I had a few days ago is only the third one this year. My dreams always have something to say to me and often I can decode the message of the dream pretty quickly. But with this last dream I was completely stumped as it didn’t seem to resonate with me on any level or to have anything to say to me. Gradually though, I seem to be understanding what the dream was trying to say, and surprisingly, it seems to relate to what is going on in Buddha Garden.

In the dream I went on a trance like journey with these shadowy presences in a very old, stolen car. We ended up in Surrey (!) and after more dreamlike wandering around shops and losing two women who agreed to help me I found myself walking around in a basement carrying a baby. This seemed to trigger a lot of decisions as I decided to get a bus back to Pondicherry (the city near to Auroville where I live) and found my way out of the basement and on the road to the bus station. With the baby I knew where I wanted to go.

Going back into the dream over these last days I have been struck how I changed once I had the baby. From being dreamy and just going along with whatever anyone else wanted I became more decisive and knowing about where I was going to go. And of course it got me thinking about all my babies.

I have had three real babies – all adults now – and lots of symbolic babies consisting of projects of various sorts. I feel Buddha Garden to be one of my babies as I started the farm in the year 2000 and feel that I have nurtured it all these years. At the moment we are going through a lot of changes as we reorganise different parts of the farm so that we can grow more. We are building 16 new raised beds as well as a different system for making compost. This reorganisation, my present baby, is taking a lot of my time and energy.

As in the dream, this baby is also forcing me to be more resolute. What do I want for Buddha Garden? How do I want it to develop? What do I need to do so that this development can happen? How these questions are answered will determine how Buddha Garden evolves. And since I feel my inner development is very tied up with the outer development in Buddha Garden, I need to be as clear as I can about the answers to these questions.