Cultivating Your Garden • Sunday Lecture by Rev. Bill Whitley

lecture written by Rev. Bill Whitley (Lead Minister, Metaphysical Chapel of Life), and delivered by Rev. Whitley during Sunday Services on March 16, 2025.

Lecture video included below.

I made for myself gardens and orchards and I planted in them all kinds of fruit trees.

—Ecclesiastes 2:5 (AMP)

I have for the most of my life spent a lot of time outdoors contemplating nature and the world that is all around me.

I feed the birds, the deer, the squirrels, the raccoons and all of the other animals there live our yard and the surrounding woods. I walk the yard each day picking up pine cones, gumballs, stick and stones. In my walks I am familiar with each tree, each bush, each plant, the grass and moss that covers the ground upon which I walk. There are sometimes brief moments during my walks when all thought ceases to exist and I know that I am one with all that is around me.  As is in this moment when I look around this room, I know that I am at one with each of you.

Watch the lecture video here, or continue reading below.

The contemplation of the world of nature all around leads you to the contemplation of the world within you.  When you contemplate the world within, you are cultivating you own garden.

The last snow we had was on February 20^th and our Spring Equinox celebration will occur on March 20^th. We could just view that as a coincidence or we could say that it is synchronicity.

Spiritually, synchronicity refers to meaningful coincidences that seem to defy chance, suggesting a deeper connection between our inner world and external reality, potentially indicating guidance or alignment with a higher purpose. 

The Spring Equinox celebration and ceremony is about entering the season of planting seeds for growth. The seeds that we plant in the earth are symbolic of the seeds of spiritual, mental and emotional growth that we plant within ourselves during the Spring Equinox ritual ceremony.

On the morning of February 20^th, we were still having flurries after a night of heavy snow. I went outside to take pictures and one of the first things I noticed was the top of daffodils’ peeking out of the snow.

The daffodils are usually the first flowers to push their way up through the still hard earth to announce the coming of spring.

They also are the first reminders that it is time to buy seed, plants, fertilizer and garden soil to start our garden. Once our seed and plants are in the ground, we begin the process of cultivating our garden.

We are now in that period  that we all begin to have thoughts of the  cultivation our own garden. My thoughts now turn not to the cultivation of my garden of the soil but to my garden of the soul.

I and everyone else who comes here to the Chapel, is looking for something. Something that lifts them out of the darkness, cold and snow of winter into the light and warmth of spring. A warmth that is lasting and lifts us up to make us happy. So, what do we think that it is that we are seeking? 

A spiritual path that we feel truly appeals to us? 

A spiritual path that will make us truly happy?

 I would like now to share with you a quote from Edgar Cayce.

I have to admit that I have had a hard time with that quote.

Isn’t being spiritual supposed to be what it is all about?

Isn’t that why I am supposed to be here talking to you?

Aren’t we all who are here and, on this path, supposed to be teachers to lead others to the spiritual path?

I think that I have always known that we cannot find success (happiness) in the pursuit of dollars and cents.

However, I have always believed that the way to success (happiness) was to look for it in the spiritual life.

So where does that leave me?

How do I add the spiritual life if I am not looking for success in the spiritual life.

Cultivate your garden!

Religion is finite.

Spirituality is infinite.

A structured dogma, doctrine or guidance is religion and is finite.

An unstructured guidance that encourages one to follow their own inner guidance is infinite.

Religion is based on atonement!

Spirituality is based on At One Ment!

At One Ment with nature.

At One Ment with others.

At One Ment with God.

When we realize that we are truly At One with God, then we know we are At One with all.

We are at one with the great All.

When I took Yogi Bhajan kundalini classes, we were taught a mantra to help us understand.

The mantra is as follows:

I am God, God am I, God and I are One.

I would like to share a couple of Quotes:

Spirit is not going to make you spiritual, only you can choose to make you spiritual.

Spirit only comes to you by invitation.

If you want spirituality in your life, choose to be spiritual.

So how does one choose to be spiritual?

By simply being. If you want to be spiritual, simply be.

Who you are, what you are, by your own definition.

In other words, own you own self.

Do not allow others to define you!

Do not allow others to define your spirituality!

Plant your own seed.

Cultivate your own garden.

Grow your own soul.

Edgar Cayce quote again:

Earlier I talked about the daffodils were the first flowers to poke their blooms out after the last melting snow of winter.

Winter is a time when everything shuts down, bears hibernate, racoons semi-hibernate, the squirrels only come to to eat the nuts they have buried and the bird’s fly south. So, everything is in a state of depression. Depression is not necessarily a negative word it simply implies to shut down. Snow happens to be a symbol for depression in that it shuts everything down. However, when the sunlight shines on the snow it glistens and a warmth build up in the snow and causes it to melt.  The daffodil awakens and all is reborn.

So, on a symbolic level snow is more than a metaphor for depression.

The symbol of snow is a double edge sword, it can be a metaphor for depression or purity and spirituality. We just need to know how to apply it symbolically.

Happy is a choice you make, like the flowers choose to break through the snow and ice of winter into the warmth and light of spring.

So, choose to cultivate the garden of your soul.

The seeds that you choose to plant, feed and water will determine what you grow.

I would like to share another Quote:

YOU ARE THE FLOWER!

Each year in the winter a tree loses all of its leaves and enters a dormant state – a state of depression. However, in the spring the tree regrows its leave and so it is reborn. It is the same tree but, it is not the same tree. It is growing new leaves and new bark and becoming a new tree. We are like the tree. WE TOO ARE REBORN.

“The Garden”

by William A. Whitley10/08/1984 I cultivate a garden More beautiful than seen I cultivate a garden Filled with only dreams

The flowers in my garden From God’s Love were shorn The flowers in my garden Until now unborn

I cultivate a garden  Which all now may need I cultivate a garden God will sow the seed

The flowers in my garden Are all alive and warm The flowers in my garden Are all souls now reborn

I cultivate a garden Where God’s Love will show I cultivate a garden Where God’s Love will grow

The flowers in my garden Are all flesh and bone The flowers in my garden Are all souls atoned

I cultivate a garden More beautiful than seen I cultivate a garden Filled with only dreams