Who is my Work for? I found myself brought up short when that question confronted me this morning.
Working in my Garden
Having arisen before dawn, I went out to the garden to attend to a specific task. A bed on the side of the house that does not usually need much work, was becoming overgrown with grass. Earlier in the summer I’d planted some perennial pollinator plants there. Yesterday I noticed the grass taking over. It needed to be cleaned up. I set to work, hoping to get much done before things got too hot.
As usual, my gardening is never quite straight forward. I bring the tools I think I need, then find I could use this or that, so it takes a bit to settle in. These days I also need to be more mindful of my age and body mechanics (I tend to over-due then end up out of whack.) So, I am mindful of my time with the intention of interrupting my automaticity.
With that thought, I called a stop for myself. In the pause, the question arose, “Who is my Work for?”
Working for Myself
What I saw, was that the work I was doing was for myself. I didn’t like the way this bed looked, I like things neat and tidy. All this inner work of intending and pausing was for my own satisfaction and wellbeing.
Honestly, in that moment I felt ashamed. The night before I’d been reading the student applications for Claymont’s upcoming Course of Study. Many applicants expressed their reason for wanting to come on the course was to better their ability to “serve.”
So here I was, working in my garden, trying to be “conscious,” and for whom? My sense of order? To impress the neighbors? To feel good about my yard. All firmly attached to ego. What could I do in that moment?
Working to Serve
I could shift my focus. Rather than being intent on removing the grass to make the bed look better, I set my aim to protect the pollinator plants from being overrun. My intention for my gardening effort was now to support pollinators.
For me, this is a useful exercise. My focus tends to be self-centered. To remember to shift my attention to see who I can serve, creates a new pathway for my work. I’ve learned the ABC’s of inner work. Initially it had to be about myself—seeing myself, working on myself, growing myself. Now I can apply these lessons so that my “self” is working to serve something beyond itself.
Who am I working for? I am working for that which I can serve.
I too have a pollinator garden I envisioned and “ swerve”. I kniw it delights me more than I could ever imagined. Because it gives me a portal into the rim of amazing world we live in beautiful interdependence with.
I also know that all Work is service . An intent or attention toward Being is a shift in that changed energetic direction, toward Source. We have our own little selves as vehicles as portals too to connect this amd other worlds for the sake of Conscioysness, Love itself
Thank you Roberta & Amy, such useful reminders..
Who is Served is interesting, in a recent theme about kindness to others there were observations about their offers of help being refused.. . Mine was rather inverse, about being helped by a stranger, a man on a motorbike, who rode back up the lane we had been driving along to retrieve my wing mirror, which had been knocked off by the hedge. Whilst I was waiting I was wondering what I could give him in thanks (& payment?). Eventually I realised that Thank You was enough, because I know the sweet reward for extra efforts & outer considering..
Recently I’ve been pondering on JGB about Acts, in the sense of Conscious Work, even on small acts as a very real contribution to transformation & what we are able to do.. & it ties in, in my understanding with the ‘Why’ of the Decision.. To Make Order. &just look at the quality of energy in the flowerbeds after a bit of conscious Work.. && If the reward of Work is more Work, how often have we visualised cleaning .. or weeding one small area to find that the whole room gets cleaned..
Who am I a working for indeed. Thank you thank you thank you ..
Ps. the reward for work needs also to be transformed as food for being not personality & the dreaded ego..your comment feels like picking up a bead & finding its part of a string of beads xx