Inner Gardening: Cultivating the Self with Ann Dorian Brice Hunt by Marylyn Rands

For staff writer Marylyn Rands, who has a first-person familiarity with Inner Gardening, Dorian Hunt exemplifies those rare teachers who can help others to see their own lives and selves with lightness and humor.

This article also features at the end a lovely, poetic description by Debra Bloom of the experience of seeing one's life as a garden.

I have twice — about fifteen years apart — attended Inner Gardening with Dorian Hunt. And except for the Flower of Life workshop, I think that Dorian's Inner Gardening has had the greatest impact upon my inner life of any other work that I have done.

As we know, imagery and metaphor are powerful tools for personal growth and transformation — "A picture is worth a thousand words" — and in Dorian's teaching, the metaphor of gardening creates a powerful way of looking at the process of inner growth and transformation.

Most of all, Dorian's approach is gentle and fun. It brings in the childlike, playful sense of adventure that leads so easily and naturally to Lightness of the Heart.

Marylyn: How did you come to teach the Inner Gardening workshops and to use these metaphors in your counseling and other work?

Dorian: I developed the Inner Gardening workshop back in 1982 as an assignment for the master's program in Holistic Education and Counseling at Interface in Newton, Massachusetts. At that time, the book The Inner Game of Tennis was popular, and this had spawned other "inner" games.

I loved gardening and metaphor, so I coined the term Inner Gardening for my course. And then the feedback of participants over the years attested to the power of this step-by-step process of discovery and growth.

Many people have repeated the course as many as four times, and each time they have something new to plant and nurture. I feel privileged to facilitate these workshops, and I delight in the blossoming and flowering of all the participants.

Marylyn: How did you hit upon gardening as your metaphor.

Dorian: It just came naturally to me, because it's what I love to do. And I saw that gardening is not just about growing things in the soil. It's also about the growth process itself, as well as beauty, abundance, and nurturance. Unless it's blocked in some way, a garden evolves naturally, step by step. And in the same way, our bodies, emotions, and spiritual understandings grow and change throughout life. So gardening is a perfect metaphor for living with natural growth and transformation in a flowing, step-by-step process.

Also, the gardening metaphor deals with death. Of all the things that block us, death, or the ending of things, is probably the most difficult. And the garden metaphor contains many mini-deaths. It constantly embodies the idea of letting go of what has been in order to allow what will be.

The seed dies to produce the sprout. The blossom dies to produce the fruit. The fruit dies to bear the new seed.

The gardening metaphor also works to lessen our resistance to seeing what is. Looking at life as a garden can help to ease our denial and fear by allowing us to look at processes outside of ourselves, where issues can more safely be addressed before we need to apply what we have seen to ourselves. This way, blocks can be released more easily. It is a playful and adventuresome way of dealing with our issues.

Marylyn: Can you give us an example?

Dorian: I remember one class where I asked everyone to draw a picture of a tree and a house. The house, of course, represents the self. The tree represents the nurturing energy in one's life.

One person drew the tree so that it almost devoured the house. She happened to be starting a new relationship, and she was enveloped in that process. When she realized this through the picture she had drawn, she was able to see how much she had started to depend on her new partner. This picture — and the fact that she had drawn it herself — made it possible for her to stand back from that situation.

At the beginning of the workshop, we each pick a tree or flower to represent how we feel about ourselves at that time. One person drew a bare, gnarled tree leaning out over the ocean. She felt that she was alone. But she also felt that she was tenaciously hanging on. She saw her strength.

Another drew a bonsai plant. She had suffered from having too many expectations placed upon her. She was stunting her own growth in order to be beautiful for others.

These images are powerful, and what they mean can be explored safely, even in a group.

Marylyn: In your workshop, you use many different techniques to get the participants to loosen up and get in touch with their child selves. Most of it seems like play. Why is it that you emphasize play so much?

Dorian: When we play, we are totally in the moment. We let go of the critical mind, the judging mind, and are able to connect once again with the imagination of the child. It is through the child mind that we can access our creativity and intuition. It helps us get rid of the blocks we have accumulated in our adult lives.

Plus, fun is fun! Having fun helps us get into the heart energy.

Marylyn: I have never known anyone who enjoys playing as much as you do. How did you learn to keep that playful spirit alive?

Dorian: I am sure I played as a child. Playing comes naturally to children — it's how we learn. Then we are taught to get serious, and we shut down that inner joy and sense of play.

Like most of us, I developed many blocks as I grew up. I had to relearn how to play. Some of the things that helped me were Yoga, Dance Free, New Games, listening to my heart — and being around children.

My mom is still a great influence. I have photos of her last summer, on her ninetieth birthday, using a hula hoop! She has taught me to flow with life, and most of all, to laugh.

Marylyn: What can you suggest for those of us who find it difficult to let down and play?

Dorian: First of all, you have to make it a priority. You have to give yourself permission to do things just for the fun of it.

Then, find something to enjoy in everything you do. In doing this, use all of your senses. Enjoy the color of the carrots you are peeling. Look at the patterns in shadows on the wall. Run your fingers through bowls of beads or stones or water. Feel the sensation and listen to the sounds.

You can make a practice of having fun. Do silly things to make yourself laugh. Or just force yourself to laugh for no reason at all! Try this, and you will find that you can do it to the point where you are laughing uncontrollably.[1] If you do this every day, you will lighten up quickly!

Watch children play, and imitate them. Play with children's toys. If you can, get down on the floor when you do this. It will help you remember being a child. It will make you feel light-hearted, and you'll realize how much you used to laugh.[2]

It also helps to get down on the floor and play with a pet. Animals bring out that happy, free-spirited side of us. You can even pretend to be a pet yourself.

Allow yourself to re-awaken your sense of curiosity and adventure. Use your imagination — and then do what it tells you to do. You will find out that the fun-loving child is still inside of you.

Marylyn: We worked a lot with imagination in the course I took with you. I remember a guided meditation about subpersonalities that has stayed with me for many years.

Dorian: I'm happy to know this stayed with you. Tell me what you remember.

Marylyn: Well, I don't remember your actual words, but in my meditation a cute red roadster drove up full of characters. You said these were my subpersonalities. One was an Alice-in-Wonderland girl, very clean and neat with perfectly-curled blonde hair. She was my prissy self, trying to stay clean — but curious underneath.

Then there was a grumpy elf-like guy. He was my worrier.

There were several others. I don't remember all of them, now. You asked us to give them each a name.

Then you asked us to walk to the top of this tall mountain and take one of our subpersonalities with us. I chose the worrier elf. I named him Moe.

All the way up the mountain, Moe whined and complained and kept telling me to be careful. He was quite annoying. I kept ignoring him, and finally he shut up.

When we reached the top of the mountain and looked out over the valleys, I realized I was a giant sunflower. I understood how my worrying kept me from standing tall in all my sunflower glory. I knew then how much potential I had if I would just stop worrying about things. I was impressed with how much came out of my imagination when I removed this block.

Dorian: I remember that. You really came into your strength by the end of the workshop.

Marylyn: Yes. It was a powerful experience. I still return to the inner gardening imagery and playfulness whenever I'm feeling stuck.

I'll never forget how you had us wiggle across the floor like worms under the soil! I felt really stupid at first, but then I got into it and just laughed.

Another time, you had us dance with flowing chiffon scarves in many colors, to demonstrate the beauty of the flowering garden.

Dorian: The scarf dancing is another kind of play. Play doesn't always have to be childlike. We can still pretend, even though we are adults. We can pretend to be beautiful dancers. We can pretend to be a magnificent dragonfly, skipping across the water. Pretending is a form of play and can bring us happy feelings.

Imagination and suggestion are two of the most powerful tools we have for growth. During the Inner Gardening workshop, I help peoplel get into a relaxed state, and then lead them on a journey into their imaginations. I have them allow images to come up on their own in relation to different suggestions.

These images came from the right brain and contain powerful messages. The fact that the ones you came up with in your workshop remain with you even today attests to the power of this process and your willingness to work with the images you received.

Many people do these exercises and find them interesting, but then forget about them. We need to open ourselves to the images and allow them to speak to us, and then apply the information we receive. Journaling is good for this. In the classes, I have people write down what they experience.

The very first visualization my own teacher did with me is one I use in Inner Gardening. "If you were a plant, flower, or tree," she asked me, "what kind would you be?" She said to allow the image to come, rather than thinking about it.

I saw a dandelion. At first, I was disappointed. But then, in describing the dandelion, I saw myself clearly. It was profound. A dandelion sows seeds everywhere. That image helped me to discover my work, which also is to sow seeds. I am still glad to be a dandelion — although there have been times when I've wished I were a rose.

Marylyn: Thank you, Dorian. Is there anything else you'd like to say to our readers?

Dorian: I would like to see this workshop offered to different groups, such as teenagers, couples, mothers of young children, seniors, and so on. It is my hope that we all become inner gardeners. And as we consciously work on our inner gardens, we will create a more loving and peaceful world.

What I also am learning in my garden is that I must be gentle with myself and appreciate the rhythm of my own personal growth. Just as the gardener cannot coax a plant into flowering before its time or into becoming anything other than the self that was contained so perfectly and completely within its seed, so I am learning to stretch each day a little more toward the sunlight and deeper into the earth, knowing that I am unfolding in awesome splendor, one magnificent petal at a time.