Garden Posting of Meditations
Sep 7, 2001 Agnes, New York, NY Can we use the beautiful prayerful meditations of the flowers' representations as written by Father Gemminger and paste them onto little marker stakes and varnish them and use them for the benefit of the occasional visitors who might like to stroll though our garden? We did not want to 'steal' his beautiful thoughts and reflections. Perhaps we can give him a lttle credit piece on entrance.? Thanks for your response Reply, John Stokes, Mary's Gardens, Sep 18, 2001 Thank you for your message of September 7th telling of your plan of pasting the little flower meditations from our website in your planned Mary Garden on marker stakes - for the assistance of garden visitors in their flower reflections. This has not been done before, to our knowledge, and may indeed have been overlooked by us as an apt means for instruction in flower meditations. We ourselves learned to meditate on the Flowers of Our Lady by perceiving their symbolism from their religious names, of which we informed others visiting our Mary Gardens by means of plant name markers, and by word of mouth as we walked with them through the gardens. Then, after some years we found Father Gemminger's book, "Flowers of Mary," of meditational sermons on a flower for each of the 31 days of May. These sermons inspired our composition of the short meditations - which we presented to others in articles and brochures, and then on the website, but not right with the flowers in the Mary Garden, as you propose. At some Mary Gardens, such as that at Knock, the meditations have been included in booklets or brochures available at the garden, together with plans of the plantings - which visitors may hold in their hands as they walk through the garden, and then take home with them as a permanent record. The National Herb Garden, of the Herb Society of America, in Washington, DC has attractive informative marker stakes at each colony of herbs. You indeed have our permission to make use of these meditations, as you propose; and you may edit or modify them as you wish. This is the restoration of a living tradition - which originally was oral, and individually interpreted, rather than in fixed written form. As you suggest, a notice at the Garden could mention the origin of the meditations from us, and their inspiration by Father Gemminger, who in turn drew them from oral tradition, with the addition of his lovely poems. In addition to the meditations in our Introductory Annuals Mary Garden brochure, on the website there are some earlier versions in STARTING YOUR MARY GARDEN For New Gardeners Dish Mary Garden Flower Meditations and in GARDENING Indoor Dish Mary Gardens Dish Mary Gardens For The Blind One sermon chapter from Father Gemminger's book - for May 24th, The Narcissus - is reproduced on the website under RESEARCH Mary-Flowers in Germany Flower Sermons for Each Day of Mary's Month of May When your Mary Garden is planted, send us some photos, including some close-ups of some of the meditation labels, so we can share them with others in our Chat and Photos section. Agnes Sep 20 2001 Thank you for your message of September 18th We are in the very infancy of the planning stages of our Mary Garden project. i learn more each time i visit all the ins and outs of the mgardens.org website, and also have been searching the Internet. Of material "helps" for potential Marygardeners are websites which provide PICTURES and planting info. for the plants in addition to those on www.garden.com. Some helpful websites are: http://elib.cs.berkeley.edu/photos/flora/ http://www.neoflora.com/cgi-bin/bsearch.cgi i have been using them to see what the plants actually LOOK like as we are still very much in the planning/inquiring stages of our gardening endeavours. What is most important is the Beautiful and Holy Uplift which one finds both in reading the Meditations, and in pondering the thoughts which raise our hearts to Praise Our Heavenly Creator God, and our souls to implore His Mercy. i guess the next thing in importance is the actual devotion and care which go into the creation and maintenence of Mary Gardens. Because the fruits of this devotion can be tangibly felt both by those who create/maintain, as well as those who admire. I came up with some rather "material" (ie. physical/practical) things which may be of use to someone. Sometimes i think the flower which represents this gardener may well be the "shaggy fleabane" or the "rough pigwort". My thoughts are not very lofty mostly. thank you again for all your encouragement - both by your kind response to e-mails, and the thought provoking ideas as elucidated on the Internet site. P.S. don't flowers - as seen on the News these days, and also in personal gardens - just seem to provide a bit of hope/brightness/consolation in these difficult times? Your words express well how much we need our minds and hearts drawn to Our Lord and Lady in these times. May they - in their Goodness - bless us all. John Stokes, Mary's Gardens, Sep 21, 2001 A wonderful thing about this work is that after 50 years we continue to receive fresh insights, such as yours. Yes, there are many wonderful pictures of the Flowers of Our Lady (as well as descriptions and planting information) on the Internet. In addition to browsing general gardening websites, we suggest doing Internet searches for individual flowers - by both their common and their botanical names (as given on our website). As captured in our own photos on the website, what we keep looking for are photos of flowers from perspectives which best show, for reflection and meditation, the symbolism indicated by their Mary-names. You mention some flower names which suggest to you your humble self. May I point out that it is a characteristic of all flowers that their blooms are perfect - so these also represent your human potential for spiritual perfection. It is the goodness of the perfection of flowers' beauty that provides for us the "hope/brightness/consolation" you note.