The Garden

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The Garden. L. Jacobs
A fable/analogy
Audience: parents of young children at one level, and children at another level.
THE GARDEN


Not so very long ago, and not so very far away from where we live today lived a young and beautiful princess who had many wonderful talents and abilities. She was especially happy when she was dancing and whirling, and she liked very much to watch herself in the mirrors at the palace to see what she looked like as she danced and sang. She liked to watch her skirts twirl and fly as she danced and to see her dark brown eyes sparkle when she smiled. She enjoyed what she saw. She liked who she saw and she liked the thought that she made people happy and that everyone liked her too.
On the day of her birth the princess was presented with a beautiful garden which had been in the making for many years. It was surrounded by a tall rock wall, which protected it from the dangers of the world. All the grandparents and aunts and uncles and the King and Queen had contributed to the building of this lovely garden. Each had selected a special plant and special stones to decorate each and every corner of the garden. Living plants and tiny seeds and bulbs were distributed around the garden for the princess to discover and tend and make beautiful.
This garden was the gift of love to the young princess and each gave happily and willingly to make it as lovely as a garden could be.
This blessing was pronounced at her christening: "Go now, and tend your garden. It is beautiful and has everything you need to make it even more beautiful. Only you have the power to make it what you want it to be. No one can take away that power without your consent."
There was one creature in the world who did not love the princess. A wicked witch who had nothing of her own. This witch was jealous of the child's beautiful garden and plotted to force the child from the garden and take it away from her.
The wicked witch began to make friends with the child day by day and gain her trust. She came into the garden disguised as a teacher. As she did she pretended to look over the garden. Day by day the horrible creature came into the garden and pointed out plants that were not just like the queen's plants in the royal garden.
"Your plants are not nearly so beautiful as the Queen's. What will she say when she sees them so short?"
On another day the hoary monster would whisper, "Oh my, your sisters' trees are so much greener than yours, and the leaves so waxy. What will people say when they see your colorless leaves?"
The little princess said she did not care what people said. She loved her garden and knew that it was not finished yet. She knew it had to have time to grow and develop. The wicked witch saw that the child was growing smarter and time was running out, so she changed her costume to make her self look like a friend of the princess, and came each day to chat and listen to music and study. While she was there she told the princess, "Your bushes are sort of scrawny compared to my other friends' gardens. I would be embarrassed for my friends to see them like this."
Another day she might say,"Your flowers are such a funny color, they don't match any of my other friends' flowers." And the Princess would be left alone, wondering why her garden was so different from other peoples? It wouldn’t have mattered so much to the princess to have a different garden, but since it mattered so much to her teachers and her friends, the princess began to want to change things to match the other gardens.
That witch was a clever one, so she added another disguise to her collection and came once in a while as a young man wanting to date the princess. While in her garden the witch, pretending to be a young man, would say, "Your garden is really different from any I have seen."
At first the princess would say, "Thank you," but then she began to realize this wasn't supposed to be a complement because it was always followed by a suggestion to make changes in the garden that would make it more like those of all his friends.
The princess wondered about all these other gardens that looked so much alike, yet so different from hers. When she looked at other gardens she did not see so many differences, but her teacher , her friend, her boyfriends all saw the differences and did not approve of them.
"That little princess is strong willed, "wailed the witch. There is only one other way to get her garden, and she bewitched herself into a handsome young prince, who fell in love with the lovely princess and asked for her hand in marriage.
The princess was a little bewitched or enchanted too, and the arrangements for the marriage occurred so quickly that she did not have a good chance to take the prince through all of her garden.
The whole country had been invited to attend the royal wedding. There was a great celebration among the families and friends, and the princess worked on her garden to make it as beautiful as she could, for that would be her gift to the prince that she loved so very much.
On the day of the wedding the princess walked with the prince into her garden. She was so proud of it; she thought it was very beautiful and the most wonderful gift she could give to him.
The prince looked around the garden and said, "I thought it would be more like the queen's garden. This garden is quite different from what I expected. We must make some changes."
"Changes?" the princess asked. "What kind of changes?"
The prince began to describe a long list of changes. Some of the changes made sense, but most did not. He wanted to tear out the beautiful flowers that she had grown up with. He threatened to take out bushes that the King had given her and trees put there by her grandparents. He did not like the clover field laid down by her brothers' when she was still an infant, and he said the climbing roses she had worked so hard to raise and beautify were an eyesore.
She sat on the bench in one corner of the garden and began to cry. Why can't he love my garden as I do. How can he be so cruel. How will I ever live in my garden with all these changes, and if I cannot be in my garden, I will surely die. The princess began to look around at the rock wall that surrounded her garden and kept it safe from harm. She thought, "My teachers, my friends, the young men, and my prince don't like my garden. They must all be right. My garden is ugly and no good to anyone. I must leave my garden. I must escape over the wall, which is not a protection after all, but a barrier to more beautiful things of the world. I must go away."
As she sat and planned to escape this garden, darkness began to creep out from the corners of the garden. Further and further toward the center it crept until the bushes were hidden by it. The trees became mere shadows and the flowers and clover were nothing but memories of color. Slowly the princess looked around the darkness, walked carefully to the wall, feeling her way in the blackest night and began to climb the garden wall.
She gripped the rough rocks with her hands, scratching and cutting her fingers and palms, her feet dug into the cracks in the rocks below her, as she slowly lifted her entire body up onto the wall, suspended now, only by her own hands and feet. Inch by inch she climbed until the pain in the shoulders and back became nearly unbearable, but still she climbed, because she knew she could not go back into that terrible ugly garden. She must escape to the enticing wonders on the other side of the wall. She could not endure the thought of her garden with ugly horrible, misshapen plants. Upward she pushed on through the long dark night until at last, with a throbbing pain in her back and legs, and bruised and torn hands and feet, she was close to the top of the wall.
She could not see over but she put her foot up and over the top and stopped to gasp for breath. Her lungs felt as if they would burst and she thought she would never get enough air to satisfy her need at that moment.
As she hung suspended there in that dangerous awkward position, the dawn began to break in the east, and a shaft of white light fell upon her face, and a voice from the past seemed to whisper, "Go back and tend your garden. It is a beautiful garden, and has everything you need to make it even more beautiful. Only you have the power to make it what you want it to be. No one can take that power away without your consent."
She looked back down into the garden as the rising sun sparkled over the wall and lit the entire garden revealing it in its entire splendor. The sunlight lit every corner and every tree and bush and flower which had ever been planted there. Some of the plants were wilted with neglect, and others looked as if they had died down to nothing. Some were over grown and needed pruning, and many weeds had grown up that had to be removed. All needed tender loving care and nourishment. The vines had covered the mirrors, so no one could enjoy watching them. The princess saw all this plainly in the morning light.
What she recognized from her perch on that wall was that her garden was a place of beauty and comfort to live in and cultivate and enjoy for her entire life. She carefully climbed down the wall into her own garden, to plan how she would make what she had even more beautiful. She knew other gardens had things hers did not have, but most important she knew all that she had could be made more beautiful with effort and time and love.
The wicked witch was caught in the light from the dawn and her powers were diminished. The princess knew that the witch could only have power over her if she gave the witch that power. She knew that she could now recognize true friends and true love, because they would enjoy the beauties of her garden without insisting that changes be made, but allowing her to make changes and improvements as she was ready to.
So the princess lived in her garden, preparing beautiful gardens for her children and grandchildren and all that came after her to live in, to grow in, and to love and enjoy.
_l. L. Jacobs The Garden