Weeding Our Inner Life

[Left Coast]

Since COVID began, my boyfriend and I have let our backyard grow basically unchecked – watering the things that we intended to grow for the most part, but not keeping up with other yard maintenance much. And so this has meant a huge number of weeds have grown up all over the place. One particular weed had grown over two feet tall and had a stem that was over an inch thick! Another species of weed that started to dominate a corner of the yard I nicknamed “demon weed” (purely for my own self-entertainment), because it has these nasty sharp thorns growing all up and down the stem that unexpectedly gave me quite a painful jab the first time I tried to pull one without gloves.

So this weekend, I set to work pulling weeds. It was laborious and somewhat annoying, but the weather was pleasant and ultimately it was a rewarding task. I’m still nowhere near done, but I’ve cleaned up one section of the yard and will move on to another section this coming weekend.

All of this got me to thinking about a parallel between weeding and cultivation of our inner life – our patterns of thought, feelings, beliefs, habitual ways of reacting to the world around us. It struck me that it is healthy for us to “weed” ourselves, in a way – to identify, uproot, and eliminate elements of our inner life that have quietly taken root and grown up within us and are not serving our needs.

For myself, I’ve noticed that my own “weeds” in this phase of my life are ones of anger and impatience. They’ve been quietly growing for quite a while now and I have noticed them but chosen to ignore them or step over them. But unfortunately, when not addressed that means they just keep growing and are now negatively impacting my life. So I have decided to focus more of my energy on cultivating seeds of compassion and gratitude and doing my best to uproot the weeds I’ve been growing that bring me no peace or joy.

So if you’ve read this far into my rambling journal entry, may the garden of your inner life grow strong and deep and vibrant and may you find the energy to weed it of anything harmful, whatever that may mean for you.

 

[Spirit of Light]

Since COVID began, my boyfriend and I have let our backyard grow basically unchecked – watering the things that we intended to grow for the most part, but not keeping up with other yard maintenance much. And so this has meant a huge number of weeds have grown up all over the place. One particular weed had grown over two feet tall and had a stem that was over an inch thick! Another species of weed that started to dominate a corner of the yard I nicknamed “demon weed” (purely for my own self-entertainment), because it has these nasty sharp thorns growing all up and down the stem that unexpectedly gave me quite a painful jab the first time I tried to pull one without gloves.

So this weekend, I set to work pulling weeds. It was laborious and somewhat annoying, but the weather was pleasant and ultimately it was a rewarding task. I’m still nowhere near done, but I’ve cleaned up one section of the yard and will move on to another section this coming weekend.

All of this got me to thinking about a parallel between weeding and cultivation of our inner life – our patterns of thought, feelings, beliefs, habitual ways of reacting to the world around us. It struck me that it is healthy for us to “weed” ourselves, in a way – to identify, uproot, and eliminate elements of our inner life that have quietly taken root and grown up within us and are not serving our needs.

For myself, I’ve noticed that my own “weeds” in this phase of my life are ones of anger and impatience. They’ve been quietly growing for quite a while now and I have noticed them but chosen to ignore them or step over them. But unfortunately, when not addressed that means they just keep growing and are now negatively impacting my life. So I have decided to focus more of my energy on cultivating seeds of compassion and gratitude and doing my best to uproot the weeds I’ve been growing that bring me no peace or joy.

So if you’ve read this far into my rambling journal entry, may the garden of your inner life grow strong and deep and vibrant and may you find the energy to weed it of anything harmful, whatever that may mean for you.

To cultivate the inner world for weeds may be the most important part of our life I like the way you put this Journal OP Thank you for sharing.

 

[SomeRandom]

Wow. Thought something very different going by the title.
But this type of weeding is good to do too

 

[ChristineM]

I don't have inner weeds but i do have a couple of wild flowers that could do with cutting back. There is one in particular that shoots up quite rapidly and that is "impatience". Mostly the specific variety of "impatience with deliberate ignorance". I'm not sure if i want to uproot it completely, it can be quite a useful little gem on occasion but i would like to cut it back a little and cultivate it.

As for the yard. A hint i have learned for those difficult to uproot weeds on the path. Don't use weed killer this can be harmful to creatures great and small but weeds seems to love it. Instead use boiling water. Its clean, safe (if you don't splash it over your foot) and it really works in getting to the root of the problem.

 

[Vouthon]

@Left Coast What an excellent 'analogy' of gardening to the inner life of the mind, I was pleasantly surprised to find this thread going in the direction that it did!

Your post was a little work of art and just what I needed to read at Eastertime, with today being Good Friday (the most sacred weekend in my religion).

I too have "green fingers" and have often thought of the applicability of Jesus's Parable of the Weeds to the spiritual life, as did the Church Fathers and Mothers at great length.

According to St. Macrina's exegesis of this parable, the good and bad seed represent the corresponding dispositions of the soul. The weeds that corrupt the harvest of the field represent the “weeds” of our heart.

But she, in tandem with the logic of Jesus's parable, cautions that we should not uproot these passions within us entirely (we have an inherently emotional, passionate human nature with different affections and sense-perceptions).

Rather, we should aim to cultivate them for good so as to put forth the fruit of virtuous habits within us, rather than evil cravings i.e. our anger could impel us to great acts of selfless courage or productive energy if employed in the right context and when controlled, yet also enslave us to involuntary outbursts of anti-social rage if managed imprudently.

Thus St. Macrina teaches: don't uproot our passions entirely, lest we pull the wheat out with the weeds i.e. lose the good that might flow from the proper direction of our nature, but rather prune and cultivate them for good and with discriminating judgment, keep careful watch over the rise and fall of these thoughts and feelings, waiting for the right time to "harvest" i.e. mark the distinctions and act like a true sage:


Parable of the Tares - Wikipedia.

The Parable of the Tares or Weeds (KJV: tares, WNT: darnel, DRB: cockle) is a parable of Jesus which appears in Matthew 13:24–43. The parable relates how servants eager to pull up weeds were warned that in so doing they would root out the wheat as well and were told to let both grow together until the harvest. Later in Matthew, the weeds are identified with "the children of the evil one", the wheat with "the children of the Kingdom"...

St. Gregory of Nyssa relates how his sister St. Macrina cited the parable as a scriptural support for her idea that God gave humans a passionate nature for a good purpose and that passions become vices when we fail to use our reason properly. In her opinion, the "impulses of the soul, each one of which, if only they are cultured for good, necessarily puts forth the fruit of virtue within us", are the good seed, among which "the bad seed of the error of judgment as to the true Beauty" has been scattered. From the bad seed, "the growth of delusion" springs up by which the true Beauty "has been thrown into the shade."

Due to this, "the seed of anger does not steel us to be brave, but only arms us to fight with our own people; and the power of loving deserts its intellectual objects and becomes completely mad for the immoderate enjoyment of pleasures of sense; and so in like manner our other affections put forth the worse instead of the better growths."

But "the wise Husbandman" leaves the growth of the "error as to Beauty" to remain among his seed, "so as to secure our not being altogether stripped of better hopes" by our passions having been rooted out along with it.

For "if love is taken from us, how shall we be united to God? If anger is to be extinguished, what arms shall we possess against the adversary? Therefore the Husbandman leaves those ******* seeds within us, not for them always to overwhelm the more precious crop, but in order that the land itself (for so, in his allegory, he calls the heart) by its native inherent power, which is that of reasoning, may wither up the one growth and may render the other fruitful and abundant: but if that is not done, then he commissions the fire to mark the distinction in the crops."[11]



CHURCH FATHERS: On the Soul and the Resurrection (St. Gregory of Nyssa)


On account of this the wise Husbandman leaves this growth (of weeds) that has been introduced among his seed to remain there, so as to secure our not being altogether stripped of better hopes by desire having been rooted out along with that good-for-nothing growth...

If, then, a man indulges these affections in a due proportion and holds them in his own power instead of being held in theirs, employing them for an instrument as a king does his subjects' many hands, then efforts towards excellence more easily succeed for him.

But should he become theirs, and, as when any slaves mutiny against their master, get enslaved by those slavish thoughts and ignominiously bow before them; a prey to his natural inferiors, he will be forced to turn to those employments which his imperious masters command.

This being so, we shall not pronounce these emotions of the soul, which lie in the power of their possessors for good or ill, to be either virtue or vice. But, whenever their impulse is towards what is noble, then they become matter for praise, as his desire did to Daniel, and his anger to Phineas, and their grief to those who nobly mourn. But if they incline to baseness, then these are, and they are called, bad passions.​

 

[WalterTrull]

Since COVID began, my boyfriend and I have let our backyard grow basically unchecked – watering the things that we intended to grow for the most part, but not keeping up with other yard maintenance much. And so this has meant a huge number of weeds have grown up all over the place. One particular weed had grown over two feet tall and had a stem that was over an inch thick! Another species of weed that started to dominate a corner of the yard I nicknamed “demon weed” (purely for my own self-entertainment), because it has these nasty sharp thorns growing all up and down the stem that unexpectedly gave me quite a painful jab the first time I tried to pull one without gloves.

So this weekend, I set to work pulling weeds. It was laborious and somewhat annoying, but the weather was pleasant and ultimately it was a rewarding task. I’m still nowhere near done, but I’ve cleaned up one section of the yard and will move on to another section this coming weekend.

All of this got me to thinking about a parallel between weeding and cultivation of our inner life – our patterns of thought, feelings, beliefs, habitual ways of reacting to the world around us. It struck me that it is healthy for us to “weed” ourselves, in a way – to identify, uproot, and eliminate elements of our inner life that have quietly taken root and grown up within us and are not serving our needs.

For myself, I’ve noticed that my own “weeds” in this phase of my life are ones of anger and impatience. They’ve been quietly growing for quite a while now and I have noticed them but chosen to ignore them or step over them. But unfortunately, when not addressed that means they just keep growing and are now negatively impacting my life. So I have decided to focus more of my energy on cultivating seeds of compassion and gratitude and doing my best to uproot the weeds I’ve been growing that bring me no peace or joy.

So if you’ve read this far into my rambling journal entry, may the garden of your inner life grow strong and deep and vibrant and may you find the energy to weed it of anything harmful, whatever that may mean for you.

Great post. Thanks for the focus.
Weeding by hand I'm sure is the best, but as you say, very laborious method. It seems that all the weed killers offered to us, while simple to use, end up having very deleterious side effects. Sometimes I ponder the wheat and tares parable.

 

[Vee]

S

For myself, I’ve noticed that my own “weeds” in this phase of my life are ones of anger and impatience. They’ve been quietly growing for quite a while now and I have noticed them but chosen to ignore them or step over them. But unfortunately, when not addressed that means they just keep growing and are now negatively impacting my life.

Mine are anxiety and insomnia. I wish I could deal better with both, but since I refuse to take medication, it's a day to day battle. Some days are good and others bah... I agree with keeping a spirit of compassion and gratitude, and focusing on the good things. That helps a lot.

 

[icehorse]

And sometimes "weeds" aren't really weeds at all, simply things you don't YET know how to make good use of