Short Cut to the Potting Shed

The inside of the meditation tent was still and quiet and surprisingly empty of people. It was very humid and full of butterflies. They were so varied vivid green, blue, patterned. In the middle of the tent was a large hole with a sign saying “Short cut to the Potting Shed enter with care”. It was a very large hole and you couldn’t really see into it.

“Should I risk it,” I asked myself as I took a very yoga type breath. I looked into my walnut, was there anything within that could assist me. The wooden Owl spoke- “Take out the anchor and think on its meaning.”

“Anchors, what do anchors do.” They moor ships. They hook into sea beds. I looked closely at my anchor and had the sensation of seeing the history of anchors. E’s gift was indeed mysterious to have this effect.

The anchor spoke

The charming of the plough is so fitting for an anchor
For there are plough anchors that grip into the mud
I am sometimes a fisherman the anchor you know best
Or I can simply be a hook or even a mushroom
Once I was just a rock floating in the sea.

Yet there are other anchors travelers seek.
Those virtues that stop us floating out in the torrid
Seas of strife and keep us firm as the waves of tests come
Threatening to set humanity adrift
Values like ancient rocks moor us to the sea of everlasting life.

I paused and threw my tiny anchor into the hole as if it was the ocean. My tiny anchor became heavy and it pulled me down with it. I closed my eyes as the butterflies followed me into the short cut. It was strange to feel them all around me. As I opened my eyes I realized that I was for a brief time a caterpillar and then a butterfly. My time was short but brilliant. I was so comfortable with my butterfly wings then I became Unity again, and was standing in the centre of the potting shed.

How wondrous it was,  just like a lolly shop but for gardeners. Potting shed indeed,you know it was also like a green house, full of so many flowers and plants that were being repotted- and full of cuttings.

There were plants that did not look like plants I was used to, but were constructed out of objects. Artistic sculptural plants like a small tree made out of old furniture pieces, and a tree made out of wire and crystals. “Hello is anyone else here,” I said. “Ah you came through the short cut,” murmured an old man with a green turban who reminded me of an ancient tree he was so still and his hands so gnarled.

“So child… show me those seeds then and I will let you know how to nurture them,” he answered before I had even asked the question.

“Who are you?”

“I my child am the father of those two angels from the cave…”

© June Perkins words and image all rights reserved

© Potting Shed idea Soul Food

For more information on anchors go to – On Anchors