The Garden On A Clifftop

The Garden On A Clifftop
By Paul McCann

When the world went to war there were many people who moved away from the cities into the country to work and live on farms until the war was over .
Sean Mackey had always feared that this might happen and long before war broke out, he began to build an escape project home on top of a clifftop overlooking the ocean . It was like a last resort place where he and his wife Bernadette and their young daughter Mena could go and live until the war was over .
It came without warning and Sean was called up for military service and go to war like many others .
Before he went he took Bernadette and Mena to the house on the cliff top to sit out the war and wait for him there to return ..
Bernadette and her daughter Mena were taken by surprise and had no choice in this awful change to their lives .
Living on a mountain top was much different than anything they had ever been through or done before .
The picture of life that was now presented to them at first seemed like living on a desert island in the sky with no one to talk to .
You could hear yourself think but everything that had connected them to their normal everyday lifestyle was removed and they had to reconnect
to a new way of life which is always difficult to do however they began to answer that call .
Bernadette thought about the
breath of life and her existence on this earth compared to the light of the soul in an eternity that awaited in a not too distant future .
She decided to start work in a garden that she and Sean had already been planning to do in their project home on the clifftop .
One day as the rain poured down she shared her dream
of a spiritual garden with young Mena who was interested in helping her mother to do that job .
Bernadette prayed for the strength to proceed with work and as she closed her eyes she has a vision of what the garden should look like .
Every day she thought about that place and closed her eyes for a while .
Then as she opened her eyes
she would begin instructing Mena what had to be done.
From a bare patch of soil a small flower garden was carved out on the top of the cliff overlooking the sea . The earth became a canvas and the trowels became brushes and slowly the floral artwork began to appear .

Bernadette and Mena were always busy with things during the war . Both of them were working hard in their herb garden . They enjoyed working with plants and found a natural
healing with gardening .
Apart from their vegetables and herbs they began planting tulips and daffodils on the top of the cliff overlooking the sea .
They had other projects that had been finished like their journey of the soul garden walk on top of the cliff top near to the house . It was a spiritual garden . more like a sanctuary for them to find inspiration and peace . Just because the world was at war it never prevented them from creating something special and beautiful , so they put down a pebbled path with sections where statues sat and bird baths , on the tree branches wind chimes hung and some coloured glass also was suspended to capture the sunlight that filtering a display of dancing colours that was soothing for the eye .
A set of steps they made went up to a small wishing well . Beside the well was a pool with some goldfish and above the pool there was a wooden walk bridge .
Four other pebbled pathways went in different directions north , south , east and west . At the end of these paths there was a gate that opened to an outer circular garden bed , filled with many flowers and small shrubs .
They all grew in quadrant sections that filled the circular garden bed .
The spiritual garden had been a labour of love since the war began and was always going to be an ongoing project .

They never heard any word from Sean and after the war was over he never returned so most of the time Bernadette and young Mena just wanted to keep busy working around their home on the top of a cliff .
It helped them cope with what had happened to their existence after that war came and disrupted their way of life and bow they were determined to turn that around into something positive .
They needed to feel connected to life and comfortable with their existence .

On a cliff top it was quiet and no one was around to interrupt their work . The garden they had created was a beautiful reflection of life with healing and new life and peace .
It was like a miracle of sight and colour in a dark time in the world with people dying every day in a terrible war .
Maybe when the war was over
the garden could be shared with others to bring the gift of peace healing to a future when war could be prevented .
Bernadette and Mena realised that maybe that was their
mission in life to bring a feeling of
deep healing and to keep feeling the peace within . They believed it was possible to bring changes in the world just because they could .

The End