My granddaughter asked if I had read The Secret Garden. I had
not. “Should I?” I asked. Her reply was an emphatic “Yes!” So I did. It’s a
story about a 10 year old English girl named Mary who is raised in India mostly
by her Ayah and other native servants. When her Ayah and both her parents die
of cholera, she is sent to Yorkshire, England, to live with her guardian. Some
of the cast of characters include thehousemaid’s younger brother Dickon who has
a way with animals, the gardener who introduces Mary to the robin who leads her
to the key to the Secret Garden and a sickly boy named Colin who is the son of
her guardian.
The menagerie of animals Dickon brings to Mary’s home and
eventually to Colin’s sick room include a crow named Soot, a fox cub named
Captain, two squirrels named Nut and Shell and a shaggy little moor pony named
Jump.
Mary transforms from a cross, tyrannical, selfish 9 year old
to an eager, curious, healthy little girl of 10 as she learns to run and play
outside and then to plant a garden and then to make friends. Magic appears
throughout the story: “Mary Lennox had heard a great deal about Magic in her
Ayah’s stories, and she always said that what happened almost at that moment
was Magic.” That moment was when a small gust of wind “swung aside some loose
ivy trails” that revealed the door to the Secret Garden. Soon the robin leads
her to the key to the door. More Magic.
 |
Pictured in Tasha Tudor's illustration are Mary (clockwise, starting
bottom left) with the gardener, Dickon (with shovel)
and Colin planting a rose bush |
As Colin gets better Mary introduces him to the Secret
Garden. He takes to it, gets healthier and healthier and then begins lecturing
on Magic. “Magic is a great thing and scarcely any one knows anything about it
except a few people in old books – and Mary a little, because she was born in
India where there are fakirs. I believe Dickon knows some Magic, but perhaps he
doesn’t know he knows it. He charms animals and people… I am sure there is
Magic in everything, only we have not sense enough to get hold of it …”
“’When Mary found this garden it looked quite dead,’ the
orator proceeded. ‘then something began pushing things up out of the soil and
making things out of nothing…I keep saying to myself. ‘What is it? It’s
something. It can’t be nothing! I don’t know its name so I call it Magic…When I
was going to try to stand that first time Mary kept saying to herself as fast
as she could, ‘You can do it!’ and I did. I had to try myself at the same time,
of course, but her Magic helped me – and so did Dickon’s.’”
“Every morning and evening and as often in the daytime as I
can remember I am going to say, ‘Magic is in me! Magic is making me well! … You
learn things by saying them over and over and thinking about them until they
stay in your mind forever and I think it will be the same with Magic.’”
Later Colin does a chanting meditation: “The Magic is in me
– the Magic is in me. It is in me – it is in me. It’s in every one of us…Magic!
Magic! Come and help! Now I am going to walk round the garden,’ he announced. Colin
is able to walk and wants to celebrate his healing “I feel as if I want to
shout out something – something thankful, joyful!”
The gardener suggests that Dickon sing the Doxology. “Dickon
answered with his animal charmer’s smile. ‘They sing it i’ church,” he said.
‘Mother says she believes th’ skylarks sings it when they get up i’ the’
mornin’.” And so Dickon sings:
“Praise God
from whom all blessing flow,
Praise Him
all creatures here below,
Praise Him
above ye Heavenly Host,
Praise
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Amen.”
Colin declares “I like it. Perhaps it means just what I mean
when I want to shout out that I am thankful to the Magic.”
When Dickon’s mother visits the garden she tells the
children that there are many different names for the Magic. She calls it the
Big Good Thing and the Joy Maker. Colin’s distant father who was traveling
around the world experienced something that “seemed to have unbound and
released him, very quietly.” Coincidentally (or not) that was the same day as
Colin cried out “I am going to live forever and ever and ever!”
I recognized Unity principles throughout the story. I
wondered if Frances Hodgson Burnett, the author, was a Unity student. I found
this on Wikipedia:
“In
December 1890, Burnett's oldest son Lionel died from consumption in Paris. After his death, she
turned away from her traditional faith in the Church of England and
embraced Spiritualism and Christian Science. These beliefs would have an effect
on her later life as well as being incorporated into her later fiction.” (Ms.
Burnett wrote The Secret Garden in 1911.)
When I finished the book, I asked Unity people if they knew
this book. Two adults both said it was their favorite book growing up - reading
it at about the same age (14) as my granddaughter. I love
when I run into anything that introduces Unity principles to the general public.
And I love that thousands of children have read this story and gotten a feel
for some of our principles in a story they love. I wonder what my
granddaughter thought of all this. Can’t wait to talk to her about it.
~ JEAN
P.S. All of the quotes from the story are from The Tasha
Tudor Edition of The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett; illustrated by
Tasha Tudor; published by J.B. Lippincott, New York, in 1962.
P.P.S. I grew up in a Methodist Church in Wheaton, Illinois,
where we sang the Doxology after the offering every Sunday.
A commitment to peace means that in the midst of all the situations and people who come our way, we will find a way to remain calm and peaceful. We can gently catch ourselves anytime we leave our peace, and take a moment to breathe and come back to it.
