Ah,
I felt your return before I heard your steps.
Welcome back to the deep-rooted garden.
This place remembers you.
And so do I.
Come,
Let us open the book of Rooted Wisdom and see what wishes to meet you today.
Mm-hmm this is a good one Thank you Aniramela and thank you for always clearing space.
This one reminds me of something I once read.
It was about a traveler who lived by one simple rule.
Never unpack.
He traveled from town to town,
Finding work for a few weeks before quietly moving on.
He never hung pictures.
He never planted flowers.
He never learned too many names.
Because to him,
Leaving first always felt safer than staying long enough to lose someone.
One crisp autumn afternoon,
He wandered into a town unlike any others that he had visited before.
The trees seemed more vivid,
He noticed.
The air a little more crisper,
He felt.
And something about this place invited him to slow down.
That afternoon,
The townspeople gathered in the village square to perform a play.
He quietly took a seat in the very back.
At first,
It seemed like an ordinary story,
Until he noticed something curious.
Every actor carried something.
One dragged an enormous trunk,
Another struggled beneath a heavy backpack,
And one pulled a wagon overflowing with old boxes.
As the story unfolded,
It became clear.
None of them realized how much they were carrying.
They had held on to their burdens for so long they no longer noticed how those burdens shaped the way they lived,
The way they loved,
And the way they moved through the world.
Near the end of the play,
The elder woman stepped forward holding a bundle of herbs.
She smiled gently and said,
You cannot welcome what is waiting for you while every part of you is busy holding what no longer belongs.
One by one,
The things they carried began to glow.
One by one,
They became aware of what they had been carrying all along.
With each new awareness came a choice,
And one by one,
They began setting their burdens down.
The traveler remained seated long after the audience had gone home.
Moonlight spilled across the empty stage.
Everything had been cleared away except one small bundle of herbs.
He walked toward it.
As he reached for it,
Another hand did too.
It was a young actress from the play.
I'm sorry,
He said.
I just wanted to know.
Is it true?
She smiled at him kindly.
Can this really clear the heaviness from someone's heart?
She smiled.
It won't do the clearing for you.
It simply shines a light on what is ready to be released.
The clearing,
That's your work.
She gently placed a bundle into his hands.
Sage.
For generations,
It has reminded people to clear what no longer belongs around them and within them.
This is only the beginning.
For the first time in many years,
The traveler stayed.
Something inside him whispered,
Stay.
Slowly,
He unpacked the things he had been carrying inside himself.
Bitterness,
Fear,
Loneliness.
The promises he made after his heart had once been broken.
Weeks became months.
He learned people's names.
He planted herbs outside the little cottage he rented.
He laughed more easily and the town slowly became home.
One afternoon,
Months later,
The young actress found him sitting beneath an oak tree.
Something about him had changed.
Something felt lighter.
She smiled.
You've changed.
The traveler smiled back.
I unpacked.
She smiled as she kept walking by.
For the first time,
He wasn't making room for his next departure.
He was making space for his life to begin.
Now perhaps there's something you've been carrying for so long,
You've forgotten it's there.
Sage has long been used to help clear stagnant energy.
Today,
Perhaps it can also serve as a gentle reminder to notice what you've been carrying,
To recognize what no longer belongs and to create space for what does.
Awareness creates choice,
And with each choice,
A little more space,
A little more peace,
A little more freedom.
There is no shame in setting things down.
There is wisdom in knowing when it's time.
When you're ready,
You don't even have to become someone new.
You simply make space for who you've been all along.
And that is enough.
Mm-hmm.
Let us head back to the garden.
You are always welcome here in the deep-rooted garden.
Until next visit,
May the roots beneath you stay strong,
And may the wisdom you found today continue to grow.
Yes,
And may the wisdom of the Deep Rooted Garden guide you until we meet again.
