Heavenly Gardens and Childhood Memories of New Lands Garden

I was very fortunate to grow up living in a little cottage on the New Lands estate.
'Wide Horizons' is its name, and it has great views of the beautiful Hampshire countryside, with glorious sunsets and golden light bathing the little garden. My dad, John Hodgson, (our first treasurer of the Lodge in those early days, and very clever he was at helping us all exist on a shoestring!) had green fingers and he spent any spare time he had in the garden. In those days, just after the second world war, everyone was growing vegetables, making chutney and jam (and he was great at this), and we had free range hens too. Lovely to see in lockdown how these simple, natural pursuits have come back into our lives. It is heartwarming too, the way those living in urban environments are being encouraged to develop little garden spaces wherever possible. We are all being encouraged to help wildlife flourish and many public gardens now have wild flower spaces to encourage pollination. There really are more bees and butterflies around this year - it has thrilled my heart to hear and see them.

 My childhood memories have come flooding back...in the 1950s, long before the first Temple was build on New Lands hill, on summer afternoons my Mum used to pack us a picnic tea, and with my sister Rose, and cousins, Colum and Jeremy, we went into New Lands garden and enjoyed all the beauty there. A special favourite was the pond, and in late summer, we would look very carefully for the dragonfly lavae who had climbed up the water plants. There usually were one or two who had just emerged and were drying their wings in the sunlight before flying off in their new freedom. My mum used this beautiful sight as a means to explain death*  to us, and the other children who came to the monthly children's service she led in New Lands chapel. She also talked with us about the beauty of the gardens in heaven, which she called the 'Summerland' - always sunshine there, it seems, and the flowers, birds and insects more lovely than even our paradise gardens on earth. That is where we may go when our bodies sleep at night, she told us, and where we wake up when the time has come to leave behind our physical body...

 And as White Eagle tells us, on the last page of his 'Little Book of Comfort for the Bereaved': 'Let us become aware of the beautiful garden of reunion. Each soul is taken to the quiet sanctuary to sleep until they are ready to awaken to the new life which awaits them. When they wake, they look out into a sunlit garden which is as dear and familiar to them as their most loved garden on earth; and thus they can walk into the sunlight to meet their beloved family and friends who are awaiting their coming. Stay a while here and commune with your loved ones...`

Such a lovely vision for us all to contemplate.

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 * I have recently been given a little book on this theme 'Water Bugs and Dragonflies' by Doris Stickney.  ISBN 978-1-4729-7315-3. It has lovely illustrations, and explains beautifully for children death and re-brith into the heaven world. (First published in 1982, it is still in print.)