Be Creatively Inspired in a Garden

A Playdate to Delight Your Inner Child

Sep 02, 2024

There is a moment where the senses have gorged themselves on beauty and become heavy with their fullness, slowing the mind so that it can perceive the Divine Beloved dancing behind the veils of nature. But first comes the sensual feasting! 
‘Enter the Garden of Delights’ card, Rumi oracle deck, Alana Fairchild

I enter the garden with expectation. This is a favourite place now, with its layers of memory from so many visits and its breathing lungs of fresh inspiration. The garden always surprises in some way. Today, I plan to take you with me. I will also take Li’l Phoebe, my inner child. Your inner child is welcome too.

The gates are open, inviting.

Adelaide Botanic Garden Entrance Gates & Statue of Venus

The goddess Venus welcomes us. Perhaps she will guide us with her energies of love, beauty and fertility. After all, this garden is a fertile place of abundance and imagination. Plus, its secret places are perfect for romantic trysts. Li’l Phoebe points to Venus’s bare bosom and I blush a little. I remember walking past this unlabelled sculpture so many times, without recognising Venus. Just an old statue from the past, I thought. Until one day, I felt to investigate. Now I celebrate her divine feminine beauty as I enter the garden. It’s time for her voice of love to be heard again.

Amalthea and her goat are also in the garden somewhere, symbols of nourishment and abundance. Perhaps our inner children can hunt for her. That could be fun.

I usually begin these visits by walking quietly through the garden, led by my senses. I breathe its peace into me, its gentle sounds. I delight in green patterns, autumn foliage, or signs of spring. I deep breathe. Breathe out the dust of my days. Breathe in life-force.

The first surprise of today is a kookaburra sitting on a branch, close range, eye-level with me. I feel a thrill in my chest. Should I pull out my camera? No. I stand motionless, not wanting to scare it away. Then the kookaburra laughs at me, with its signature call. I’m transfixed for maybe 20 seconds, and then it flies. I try to follow it with my eyes, but the trees soon hide the bird. And then I laugh, and continue walking. How fitting, for a play date. Laughter. A kookaburra encouraging me to enjoy the day. ‘Thank you,’ I whisper.

The kookaburra is not alone. I tune into parrot song, magpie calls, then sit beneath some plane trees to absorb the wonder of it all. I close my eyes to listen, but not a minute has passed when loud shouts spoil the peace. Children. A class of children has arrived and they’re running wild on a crunchy carpet of withered brown plane leaves. A few kids start piling leaves into hills. Others join. Kids gather in circles to build leafy ‘sandcastles,’ complete with moats and squeals of joy. As leaves are thrown into the air, a sweet scent fills the air.

Li’l Phoebe is stirred, wanting joy now, more than peace. Wanting to run and shout and frolic with the schoolkids. Crunchy leaf play is not a common thing in Australia. Almost all of our native trees are evergreen. That’s why we don’t call autumn, fall. That’s why these kids are so excited by the novelty of piling up dried leaves. My adult self is happy to see them away from screens, enjoying simple outdoor pleasures. Nature play.

I am reminded of visits to this garden with my own children, their undiluted delight and the dissolving of fussiness when they entered this space. I recall a school trip with my son’s fifth grade class. A girl named Indigo could not contain herself, purple prose pouring forth in praise of every single thing - the massively huge roots of the Moreton Bay fig trees, turtles swimming through reflections in the duck lake, a beeoootiful butterfly. Unrestrained excitement. It was clear that the other children thought Indigo was weird (sadly), but I was intrigued. Had she never been to a garden before? Could she see fairies, or some kind of nature magic that the rest of us had shut ourselves down to? (Most likely she was a sensitive, artistic soul.)

This talk of fairies reminds me of a performance of Tinkerbell and the Dream Fairies that I stumbled across here in the garden. Not only the cast, but the audience too, were dressed in their best fairy finery. It was so enchanting (if a little noisy).

And because I can’t stop thinking about fairies now, there’s another sculpture here for our inner wonderkids to hunt down. Dedicated to girl scout brownies, this mushroom and owl have me imagining a circle of fairies and mischievous brownies enjoying a tea party.

Li’l Phoebe reminds me how much she loved reading Enid Blyton’s The Faraway Tree books as a six year old, and this garden now shapeshifts in my imagination, as I’m transported back to the Enchanted Wood.

This feels like a place where anything can happen. On another day in the garden, I was surprised to come across a swing dance party, and the music had me humming and toe-tapping my way around a vegetable patch, praising the cabbages (they were huge) and marigolds (they keep bugs away).

On an even crazier day, I was taking a shortcut through the gardens with my brother and his wife, when we came across purple tables set up in a circle around the bottle tree. Two people dressed as ‘tree spirits’ (I think??) persuaded us to sit down. They gave us herbal tea and while we slowly drank, we were supposed to look into mirrors on the tables and silently reflect on what we saw (thankfully, the mirrors reflected the forest around us, not ourselves).

Bottled Wisdom & Deep Reflection (sneaky photo taken when the tree spirits weren't watching).

My brother is not the type to quietly meditate, but (clown that he is) he is the type to communicate through exaggerated facial expression. His wife and I could barely restrain ourselves from laughing and upsetting the lovely, but rather serious, tree spirits. (I know we were meant to be looking in the mirrors, not at my brother, but this went on for quite a while. Also, I suspect that ‘real’ tree spirits would have appreciated the humour.)

As I say, you never know what will happen when you visit this place.

Now my mind is rippling with memories, flowing like the creek that runs through the garden. That’s what this place does for me, creatively. I have so many garden stories, even some ethical questions to explore, but Li’l Phoebe wants none of that seriousness on this play date. Those questions will have to wait.

So I ask my little one what her favourite things are in the garden. First, it’s ice cream by the lotus pond. Then, she says, ‘tell them about the fox,’ so we head toward the rose garden. (Lotus sex and other tales from the pond will have to wait.) As we cross the wetland, Li’l Phoebe pulls on my arm, points at a metal circle on the ground and asks me to read what’s written on it.

“The world is mud-luscious... The world is puddle-wonderful.” E.E. Cummings.

“I love that,” she says.

This has become a ritual. We read this quote every time we cross the bridge now. Adult me also likes the quote on another circle:

“Water is H2O, hydrogen two parts, oxygen one, but there is also a third thing that makes it water, and nobody knows what it is.” D.H. Lawrence

Ah, the mysterious life force, perhaps?

The rose garden is where I saw the mangy fox. It took me a while to figure out that’s what it was, but I recognised the serendipity of such an out of place sighting straight away. I had, just the day before, researched the trickster archetype, and sensed a call to embrace such energy in my own life (in a positive, ‘questioning the status quo,’ kind of way). The fox, of course, is a classic trickster. So, this encounter with a fox felt like a wink from the Universe.

The fox among the roses also reminds me of the story, The Little Prince. The little prince’s meeting with a fox is the climax of the story. The fox explains to the prince that the rose he loves is so important to him because he has built a relationship with it, or in the fox’s words, because he has ‘tamed’ it. The fox then tells the little prince that there are thousands of foxes and boys in the world, but if the little prince tames him, they’ll no longer be part of those nondescript masses. To each other, they’ll be wonderfully unique and important, like the prince and his rose.

As I write this now, I see the connection with this garden, which is essentially a tamed thing. The time I have spent in here makes it important to me. The garden and I have a lifetime of established heart connections. I’ve experienced it through the seasons. All of the performances, exhibitions and events within the garden, have overlayed their impressions.

But, the taming has a dark side too. Compared to a wild place in nature, this garden requires ongoing upkeep. There is often bunting about the place, as upgrades and maintenance take place. Many of the plantings are not native. This is a place of British colonialism, with buildings to prove it. Here, the plant kingdom is named and organised in specific ways that raise interesting issues. But these are stories for another time. For today, this nature space has been the setting for an inspiring playdate. My heart is filled with fresh thoughts, and I’m ready to write.

I invite you to plan your own playdate in a garden, or nature space, and see what it does for your creativity. I say plan, but please leave space for spontaneity and serendipity. Let your senses and intuition lead the way. Follow whatever draws your attention.

Here is a downloadable playsheet to guide you on your adventure. I’d love if you would share in the comments how your playdate goes, and if it inspires a written piece, then drop in a link. Enjoy!