Pete and Repeat…

Dear Reader:

“Pete and Repeat were sitting on the fence, Pete fell off…who was left?” (“Pete and Repeat were sitting on the fence, Pete fell off…who was left?’) ETC. ETC. ETC. (Um…Repeat?)

As far back as my memory goes ….I do believe this was the first riddle I ever heard. It took a few try’s for me to figure out the object of the riddle….but when the light bulb finally came on….I thought it was so clever. (I was probably six and wanted to be “clever forever.”)

Today I came across a great addition to the theme of following and living one’s dreams (from yesterday’s blog) in so far as my garden. I knew I had to have a “revised repeat” addendum to the blog.

I have been re-reading several daily messages from Sarah Ban Breathnach’s New York Best Seller Simple Abundance.Cindy Ashley wrote me saying that she had decided to re-read the book again and I think that is what put the idea in my head…..thanks Cindy.

When I opened the book yesterday….it fell on a story from June with the quote: “Within your heart, keep one still, secret spot where dreams may go.” (Wow! I thought….Where were you yesterday when I needed your quote Louise Driscoll?)

It went on to tell the story of Frances Hodgson Burnett, the bestselling author of Little Lord Fauntleroy and the renowned The Secret Garden. The metaphor in The Secret Garden ties man’s health directly to nurturing and healing a garden first.

This had happened to her when she escaped America at the turn of the 20th century ( avoiding the scandals of her divorce and affair with a much younger man) to live in England. Depressed she began growing a rose garden….it got bigger and bigger. She later gave this “secret garden” credit for bringing her back to health and providing the seed for the idea leading to her best-selling book. (The Secret Garden.)

Sarah Breathnache tells about a wonderful dream she had while working on her own, soon-to-be, best-seller- Simple Abundance.

“I was led to an old walled garden and shown a golden key that was lying on the path. As I turned the key, a heavy wooden door easily swung open to reveal a dark, dismal wasteland of dead and overgrown plants. Everything was dark.

“But once inside, I could see an archway leading to the most beautiful garden I had ever seen, bathed in warm sunlight. Yet I was unwilling to leave the desolate garden behind to step into Paradise. Something invisible held me back, tangled in the underbrush. Finally I struggled through the archway. When I did, the wasteland disappeared. I was surrounded only by beauty and abundance and experienced great joy and serenity.”

Breathnache said she knew exactly what the dream meant. The lush garden was the awareness of abundance in her life, and the wasteland was the manifestation of her thoughts of lack.

Abundance and lack exist side by side as parallel realities. We always have a conscious choice which secret garden we shall tend.The invisible underbrush holding us back is our own thoughts. When we choose not to to focus on what is missing from our lives but on the abundance we have the wasteland falls away and we experience joy in the real lives of our daily existence

Just the message I needed to hear today. I am so glad I got a second chance to examine dreams and possibilities: A “Repeat.”

So until tomorrow….we will continue following our dreams, whatever they may be, by learning from others’ dreams. I will take you for a “thrill on blueberry hill” and a quick tour of my neighbor Vickie’s rain forest garden tomorrow. When we share dreams….they grow larger and larger.

*Brooke missed Caleb so much while we were in the mountains but she was happily back keeping him yesterday.

I had given him a little golf outfit/shorts/shirt which he is modeling! Now I just need to get him a golf cap….Caleb is going through his hair loss stage….don’t want his little cute head to get sunburned.

Don’t worry Caleb….it happens to the best of us!

“Today is my favorite day” Winnie the Pooh

Saturday Rutledge fought falling asleep for a nap or ‘night-night’ as hard as he could….and won! When Mollie and Walsh, Kaitlyn and Tommy returned from the golf tournament a little before 10:00 Lachlan was sound asleep but Rutledge was still talking non-stop about his future as a hero and a fireman.

Several times on the water taxi he almost fell asleep but then when the second photo was taken his eyes popped open with a devilish grin….the little possum!