When I get a "nudge" inside I know it is my intuition guiding me.

I've learned to trust the nudge and see where it leads me. The result of following a nudge led to the beautiful unplanned designs of the Dragonfly Garden.

When we first plowed up the garden, I looked out over the lovely tilled soil and had an immediate impression of a circular shape in the center.

I felt the nudge to start making a wide circle with my rake. While raking I got the impression of tall hedge of flowers encircling a central garden room. "What a lovely idea", I thought. I could imagine sitting in it and feeling small like a little child, surrounded by a world of friendly fragrant flowers.

My imagination took off. I began to make a 3 ft wide bed for the outer ring of flowers . As I was raking more ideas came into my mind. The winding pathways and unusual shaped beds all came into focus, one nudge after the other.

When I feel the nudge and follow, I feel relaxed and open. My mind sits in the background, while I enjoy contributing my energy to what is unfolding in the moment. This is very much like cooking, painting, or composing music. I love the feeling of the silent flowing, expansive energy that is so confidently knowing and expressing through me.

The way I garden can be called "intuitive gardening". It's quite different than the rules of the Master Gardening Training through the county extension service. By following my intuition I have made choices that do not follow the "disease" model of gardening. Rather, I have felt guided to visualize health and wholeness and well being for the garden community. This includes a conscious co-operation with the devas and other unseen beings that love this garden. I've come to learn that an expanded awareness nourishes and enriches the garden and myself, too.

Following my intuition has given me the opportunity to take a look at my mind and what thoughts and old beliefs are in conflict with the flow of creative energy in the garden. They will show up at the most unexpected times, but mostly when I feel that something is just not working well. That's when I know I have a chance to step back and look at the bigger picture and shift my focus. When I do that kind of "work" on myself, I find that the garden benefits and my intuition even becomes stronger, and more interesting things start to happen.

For example, I was getting ready to plant a bed of corn and I noticed a number of young volunteer snapdragons sprouting up all over the bed. Should I dig them up or transplant them to another spot in the garden? There were so many, that the thought of moving them was not appealing at all. I was starting to get a little attitude about it, since I had many other things that needed to get done that day and the corn seeds which I'd soaked overnight were starting to sprout and were ready to go.

I was beginning to feel annoyed by the situation. I didn't want to dig them under and I didn't want to transplant them. Things weren't working the way I wanted and so I knew it was time to step back and refocus. When I did, the answer came with the nudge to just leave them alone—an obvious choice I hadn't even considered. I went ahead and planted the corn and through the summer watched with much interest as pretty peachy-yellow snapdragons (like in the picture above) filled in around the base of the corn crop. As the corn grew taller, they grew taller and stronger, too. The bed of corn was stunning and looked like it had been purposefully planted in a bed of snapdragons, something I would never have imagined.

The corn and snapdragons were such happy companions that this bed produced the sweetest, biggest ears of corn of all the corn planted that summer. The snapdragons continued blooming well after the corn was finished and into late November. They were the happiest snapdragons that I have ever seen. They lasted longer and flourished better than all of the other snapdragons in the garden!

The Divine designer was at work and I was blessed to see the results by following my intuition.