AA’s Freedoms

 Bill Wilson wrote that “our freedoms create the soil in which genuine love can grow.” What a lovely image! I can see that analogy in my own life, in the ways in which I ‘reap what I’ve sown’.

I’ve made choices which, if seen as seeds, have produced a variety of products, from invasive weeds to glorious fruits and flowers. I learn as I mature to choose my seeds more carefully, nurturing the ones that feed my soul and removing the ones that serve no purpose other than to show me what I don’t want.

There have certainly been a lot of weeds; envy, anger, judgement, self-justification, fear, resentment. The list goes on ad nauseum. I’ve also grown some beautiful things, some lovely outcomes, but I didn’t know how to repeat my successes or nurture them properly. I had to find the answers to my gardening dilemma: how to get more consistency in the beauty, instead of what I kept growing.

I learned to listen to advice from my Master Gardener, sometimes in that inner knowing and sometimes in the words of others who had also had fields of weeds. I learned to better prepare my soul, to curate and cultivate the fruits and flowers of my choice.

I recognize the weeds earlier now. They will always show up, but I am better equipped to locate their roots to get rid of them.

I tend my soil and enjoy the freedom to grow whatever I want and to share the beauty and the bounty.