The Woman and the Garden Gate: The Storm, Series Part 1

There are some stories that are not told, they are felt.

They live in the spaces between words, in the sacred pauses where healing happens.

This parable came to me in a moment of stillness, and I offer it now for anyone walking through silent storms, remembering their way back to their heart.

There once was a woman who carried a garden inside her.

No one could see it.

It was hidden behind her eyes, tucked in her breath, wrapped in the ache of her smile.

Long ago, a storm had come through.

Not a storm of rain or wind, 

but a storm of words unspoken, 

love withdrawn, 

and shadows that dressed themselves as light.

The storm took many petals.

It uprooted her trust.

And it left behind a gate - rusted shut - at the entrance of her heart.

People passed her by and said, 

"She's too quiet, "

"She's too soft, "

"She's too much."

But they didn't know she was busy tending.

She was pulling weeds of shame.

Watering seeds of truth.

Kneeling in the soil of her soul, hands stained in memory.

And every now and then,

a breeze would come - 

carrying the scent of a rose she had

forgotten she planted.

One day,  she met another traveler. 

They didn't ask her to speak.

They didn't force the gate.

They simply sat - 

and offered their own hands, covered in 

the same soil.

She realized:

She wasn't the only one with a hidden garden.

She wasn't the only one who had survived the storm.

And with a soft exhale,

the gate opened.

Not because it was forced, 

but because it was time.

She stepped into the garden -

and this time, she did not walk alone.

If you are tending your own heart quietly, I see you.

Healing is not loud.  It is sacred work done in the softest places.  You are not alone in your garden - others are walking their own, too.

May your gate open when it is ready, and may you always know:  the Light Within is never lost - only waiting to be remembered.

She didn't bloom because the world asked her to.  She bloomed because her soul remembered the way back to the garden.