The Ego Is a Gardener
Holly’s Climbing Rose
My best friend and life’s travel partner is my wife, Holly. And today started with her saying, “Ryan! Come here! There is something exciting I want to show you!”
She’s an amazing artist and avid gardener.
In fact, “avid” doesn’t even begin to capture it.
Often the words, “I just love gardens, so much!” stumble out of her mouth. Her tone of voice is one of joy, bliss, gratitude, and grounded surrender; as if falling into trust had a sound, and it was play.
This morning? Actual glee on her face as she showed me a plant she has been cultivating for 3 years, finally in bloom: a Climbing Rose, now more than 6 feet tall; it’s petals pink and white, with a startling gold interior.
I asked her where she had gotten it? When did she plant it?
“I didn’t,” she replied. “It just started growing three years ago. Maybe from some wood chips I brought in? So I noticed a little sprout and started to take care of it.”
Three years later, because she noticed this unexpected new life within her garden, and cared for it, it is thriving, blooming, perfuming.
Her approach to gardening feels like one of the most helpful images I have for understanding an oft-misunderstood and regularly badmouthed part of us: the ego; the thing in us that can say “I” or “me,” and sense what we mean.
And, just as there are many kinds of gardeners, I’ve had many kinds of egos in my life.
The Dominator. Some gardeners try to dominate the land with synthetic poisons and rigid lines, doing everything they can to bend the garden to their will. For them, a garden might be about a sense of control-over. That’s an inner ego I know all too well.
The Worrier. Or maybe we know the gardener within who, out of worry, over waters everything, in the name of care. And as the plants yellow and sicken, they try to fix and solve by more water; more water. Another old friend.
The Shamer. Or maybe we know the gardener within who sees new, unknown life sprout, and immediately uproots it. Who knows what that is?! Not worth the risk. What if it’s the wrong color? What might people think? So familiar….
The Ignorer. Or the one who simply doesn’t notice, and maybe decides to ignore the signs of illness, or embraces the “beauty of weeds” choking out other formally vibrant life. Yup.
The Playful, Curious Collaborator. And I think of Holly in her garden…. The sheer joy of having noticed unexpected new life, and patiently partnering with that sprout, bringing it to full flowering. I think I’m slowly starting to get to know that one too. Did I mention patience?
I would even say that, for me, the desire to “transcend” ego or to “lose” it, was, in retrospect, an act of violence towards myself; like wanting to cut out an organ from my psyche.
Problem being, of course, that the moment I started earnestly working towards that extraction, it (gratefully) triggered some ancient and insistent defenses that took a LOT of work to relate to meaningfully.
But this image of a gardener who is there to make design choices by partnering with the inherent nature of new life….To dance with the life unfolding; to bring in variety that cultivates balance; to invite all kinds of life—plant, animal, insect—to thrive in a vibrant, interconnected ecosystem within and without?
One that celebrates the flowering of unexpected newness with such glee that they feel themselves a part of life herself, even as they partner with her?
That’s kind of a lovely model, to me, of what an ego can be.
The Ego in Astrology. In astrology, I don’t equate any one thing with ego, but I have found several places that invite imaginative (and therefore meaning-full) play for me. Here are a few:
The 1st House. What would my 1st house look like if expressed from this place of a gardener partnering with new life? How might its contents voice themselves if in the grips of some of the other gardeners here? (The Dominator, the Worrier, etc.)
The AC. If I consider my Ascendant and Rising Sign as the threshold or filter through which all contents must pass (whether from inner to outer, or outer to inner), how would my experience of that threshold shift from the view of the healthy gardener? Of the other gardeners?
Saturn. Or a particular favorite of mine — how would popular versions of Saturn (constriction, limits, rules, etc) transform towards Saturn’s Sumerian precursor, Enki, the playful sky god who adapts and creates new earthen forms spontaneously, if infused with the lens of the collaborating gardener? How would a playful, flexible Saturn—who understands the innate relationship between limits and creativity— give form to life within and without, even as he reminds us of the need for consistency and discipline as inextricable aspects of real freedom?
Enki is my favorite living, mature expression of the Saturn archetype. That’s a very different experience of Saturn, inner and outer. And there’s soooo much there.
But maybe that will have to wait for another post….
Happy exploring!
Ryan