A Relationship Gardening Tool
an exercise for mutual flourishing in your relationships www.orionjohnstone.com
“Our attention is as precious and precise as sunlight. What we pay attention to grows.” -adrienne maree brown
This is an invitation to think of your current partnership* as a garden of interconnected plants, which itself is connected to a much wider ecosystem of other gardens of relationships with others, within and beyond your own circles.
This is an invitation to consider the ways you love and grow together through a lens of sustainability, abundance, interdependence, and mutual flourishing.
This is an invitation to consider the garden of your current partnership as well as the garden of your partnership in the near future — a more flourishing version, whatever that means to you.
This is an invitation to feel into what needs more or less water, what needs more or less direct sunlight, what needs weeding, what needs a shift in the soil, what is flourishing as is — in order to move toward even more mutual flourishing.
You may want to do this together with your partner(s), or you may want to do this separately first and then come together to talk about it.
What you’ll need: large paper, colorful things with which to write/draw
First: Considering the Garden of Now
Consider your partnership as it is in this particular moment.
Keep breathing. Perceive. Listen with your body and all of your senses. Trust your intuition.
Make a list of the core aspects (plants) of your partnership (garden)
If you’d like inspiration for naming those core aspects, you can check out what is listed on the Relationship Anarchy Smorgasbord**
…
Second: Mapping the Garden of Now
Gather a piece of paper and some colorful pens/markers to write/draw with
Take your time, trust that your drawing/mapping skills are great just as they are, regardless of experience (you don’t ever have to show this to anyone but yourself).
Draw/map/sketch the garden of your partnership as it is right now.
Some points of inspiration to consider:
How has external weather, beyond your control, been affecting your garden lately?
What is the soil made of and what is the quality of it?
What size/color/shape are each of the plants?
Which plants are sprouting fruit/flowers?
In what ways are the roots of the plants connected?
What, if anything, is dry and/or over-watered and/or getting too much or too little sunlight?
What are the roots of your garden ecosystemically connected to, beyond the map of your own garden?
(One common example, in a longterm partnership, is that the cozy caretaking plant is gigantic and flourishing and overgrown and crowding out the sun and other resources from other plants like the sex plant and the spontaneous adventure plant)
…
Third: Considering the Garden of the Near Future
Consider a more flourishing version of your partnership, one that you can imagine being possible in the near future (next few weeks/months)
Keep breathing. Perceive. Listen with your body and all of your senses. Trust your intuition.
Make a list of the core aspects (plants) of this more flourishing partnership (garden) — this may be the same or a very similar list as your Garden of Now, or it may be very different — it’s up to you
…
Fourth: Mapping the Garden of the Near Future
On a separate piece of paper, again with colorful pens/markers-
Take your time, trust that your drawing/mapping skills are great as they are, regardless of experience (you don’t ever have to show this to anyone but yourself).
Draw/map/sketch the garden of your partnership in the more flourishing version you can imagine, weeks/months from now
Some points of inspiration to consider:
What is the soil made of and what is the quality of it?
What size/color/shape are each of the plants?
Which plants are sprouting fruit/flowers?
In what ways are the roots of the plants connected?
What, if anything, is dry and/or over-watered and/or getting too much or too little sunlight?
How might external weather, beyond your control, affect your garden?
What are the roots of your garden ecosystemically connected to, beyond the map of your own garden?
…
Fifth: Moving Toward More Mutual Flourishing
Keep breathing. Take in your two gardens, side by side.
Notice how you are feeling in your body and breath.
Trust your intuition as you respond to any or all of the following prompts:
What do you notice in your body and breath as you take in the garden of now?
What do you notice in your body and breath as you take in the garden of the near future?
In order to allow your current garden to open to the mutual flourishing of the near future…
What needs to be tended the same, no change at all, just allow and trust?
In what ways might the soil need to shift/heal?
What is the relationship of external weather, beyond your control, to your garden?
What needs more or less water/sunlight/attention?
What, if anything, might need to be moved to a different place in the ecosystem?
What, if anything, needs to be weeded?
What other wisdom/clarity/questions come up for you as you consider these two gardens?
…
Sixth: Our Collective Liberation Ecosystem!
Some even wider questions to consider (if they resonate with you):
What are the ways the flourishing of your partnership is connected to the flourishing of relationships beyond yours?
What are the ways your gardens are a part of healing the wider ecosytems of how safe and brave and free everyone can be in love and sex and family?
What is needed, in terms of tending the widest relationship ecosystem you can perceive, for the mutual flourishing of all beings? What is your part in all of that, within and beyond your current partnership?
— — — -
*1) i shorthand to the word partnership, but of course feel free to substitute your own language, and of course this all can apply to beyond two people!
*2) i appreciate this resource (The Relationship Anarchy Smorgasbord), too, but ultimately, i dislike the smorgasbord analogy, so i encourage you to simply use their list as a springboard if it is helpful…a smorgasbord is made for one time feasting and then it is gone, whereas an ecosystem grows and changes infinitely…a smorgasbord can be devoured entirely for personal pleasure, whereas an ecosystem considers everything that everything is connected to and supporting and supported by
