The Secret Garden

In the very public garden of Regents Park London one finds at their open theatre the Frances Hodgson Burnett story of the Secret Garden.

The subtle parallel themes to life and the garden are played out with intricate weave . After all the very life started in that Eden garden and like the plants, trees, flowers and animals that occupy the place expose the wonder of nature that magic that’s life.

Mary Lennox orphaned in India , a spoilt brat child raised under Raj whose loses her parents at 10 to the calamity of cholera. Sent from India to a foreboding Manor on the Yorkshire moors her life is set to change. Under the stewardship of her crooked gait Uncle she is now raised.

Only when Mary discovers her equally young crippled cousin and her mother’s secret garden can she start a rescue mission. With the help of a young local lad she is shown that life is not just about her but sharing and love . Then in releasing this will the magic be released into the world that everything is possible.

Once we start giving we receive and once we receive we share. Compassion love and nurture the essentials of gardening play out as lifes’s formula where all things are possible.

The crippled Uncle no longer ashamed of his production of a crippled son embraces the prospect of hope found only in the secret garden. The characters change as we all can when we begin to see the bigger picture and take our focus away from our own shortcomings. The need to take the secateur to prune roses must also be taken to cut out our attitudes to allow growth in us and in our approach to every situation.

Mary finds the key to that Secret Garden that Sacred place and in unlocking finds the true answer to life its joy and its prospect. Weather permitting the show goes on but yesterday provided a magical afternoon and a moment to reflect on that which we must tend to in our own life’s garden.

Go into your garden today , see what needs tending and cut back , cut out that which holds you back. Begin to see the wood from the trees and that bigger picture in your life. See what you can do to repair relationships and revive through love and attention that which will always lead to life to the full.