Will’s Garden Experiences
By Will Barber
November 2010
The Background of Baby William’s Memorial Garden
Essential to understanding my journey into spiritual rodding is the deeply rooted and in-spirit-ing special place that our stillborn grandson, Baby William, has in my and Pat’s ever expanding family, currently including ourselves, our four adult children and their spouses, and our seven living grandchildren.
My First Spiritual Rodding Experiences in the Garden
As part of a major remodel and addition to our family mountain cabin in Colorado, we enclosed an area near the front entrance and dedicated this area as Baby William’s Memorial Garden. The Garden’s sturdy rail fence and arbor-shaped entrance are made of handsomely-crafted and stained “skip peel” local logs.
Within the fenced area is a natural stone path separating a spectacular array of high altitude friendly plants and flowers, steadily attracting a myriad of hovering humming birds. Thoughtfully arranged throughout the Garden are a number of significant Baby William-oriented memorabilia, including a wooden carved primitive Saint Francis and, in stone, a kneeling angel, its enveloping wings protecting a sleeping infant, and a pensive small boy holding a single bird tenderly in his palm.
On one side of the Garden is a highly curved-back wooden bench, designed by Pat for times of meditation, prayer, reflection, or simply quiet escape from the cabin activities. Inasmuch as our grandchildren lovingly call Pat, Mimama, this bench is lovingly called: “Mimama’s Bench.” By telling everyone who had a hand in working on any part of the Garden about Baby William, the landscapers, the woodcrafters, and others, we successfully enrolled them in helping us create a most fitting Memorial Garden fully meeting our aspirations. In fact, the workers who now assist us in maintaining the Garden say they have their own tender and loving experience in doing the work.
Early in the morning after the Garden was completed (July 5, 2007), while seated on Mimama’s Bench, I had an awesome experience during my first spiritual rodding engagement in the Garden. Normally, I close my rodding engagements by being open to the rods moving without any initiative from me. On this occasion, the rods spontaneously pointed toward the Castles. “The Castles” is a spectacular mountain formation, a remnant from a volcanic core, replete with rugged spires often reaching into the clouds. From the cathedral windows of our family mountain cabin we look out on this providentially provided wilderness view.
Many in our family hold this unique marvel of nature to be spiritually significant. During rodding engagements inside our mountain cabin, when the rods point toward the Castles, as they often do spontaneously, I consider this to be a spiritual position.
On this occasion of my first rodding engagement in the Garden, the left rod spontaneously moved from a spiritual position pointing toward the Castles and rotated numerous times before successively stopping at the “I,” “A,” and “M” positions. Assuming that this was Baby William’s spirit beginning to spell I AM BABY WILLIAM, I was astonished when the rod resumed rotating without stopping at “B.” As the rod continued rotating for a while, not stopping at any letter position, a skeptical mental tickertape ─ “How could what I was intuitively about to ask through the rods be real?” ─ ran inside my head. Hesitantly, and despite my considerable discomfort concerning even asking such a question, I inquired through the rods as respectfully as I could:
Q. Is this I AM spelling a communication from the All of All?
In my own spirituality, All of All is an all-inclusive reference to God, however perceived or languaged. It is my understanding that “I AM” is a translation of Hebrew wording in the Old Testament for God. As an unforgettable sense of awe overcame my instinctive doubtfulness, I watched the rods move and stop at:
R. Yes.
I immediately repeated the question. The rods again rotated and stopped at the “Yes” position. To say I cherish this incredibly blessed spiritual rodding experience is the understatement of my life.
Before leaving the Garden, I asked through the rods whether the numerous rod rotations on that occasion were, in some way, a blessing of Baby William’s Memorial Garden. The rods responded in the affirmative. On behalf of all who love Baby William and appreciate his spirit’s place among us, I am, and always will be, eternally grateful for this blessing and the special space that is his Memorial Garden.
My Next Experiences in the Garden
Anxious to return to the Garden after my I AM experience, frankly hoping for some further confirmation of the validity of my understanding of that almost inconceivable experience, I went back early the next morning. As I sat on Mimama’s Bench with the rods in my hands, ready to begin my next engagement, yet before I started my opening meditative mantra, the rods spontaneously rotated and stopped in a spiritual position oriented to the Garden instead of the Castles.
Q. Does this movement and positioning by the rods mean that the Garden is now a blessed and special space?
R. Yes.
Q. May I appropriately request additional rod movement that I would understand as confirming
the ‘I AM’ experience I had yesterday in this Garden?
R. Yes.
Immediately, the left rod rotated seven times and stopped in the same spiritual position.
Next, the right rod unmistakably spelled:
B E S T I L L A N D K N O W T H A T I A M
Leaving the “M” position, the right rod rotated seven times and stopped as before in the same spiritual position.
Q. Do I accurately understand that that these rotations and this spelling confirm the validity of the I AM experiences that I had in this Garden yesterday as sourced from the All of All?
R. Yes.
When I closed this rodding engagement with my usual openness to the rods moving without any initative from me, and without any anticipation on my part, the rods again spontaneously spelled BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM, preceded and followed by seven rod-rotations. (Recognizing these words as a verse somewhere in the Bible, and remembering “I AM” as Old Testament wording for God, I subsequently determined that these words mirror Psalm 46:10, with many translations of that verse adding God after I Am.)
During my next spiritual rodding engagement in the Garden, and with a lingering urge for even further confirmation of the validity of my incredible experiences in the Garden, I asked through the rods:
Q. May I appropriately request that during this engagement the rods again spell BE STILL AND
KNOW THAT I AM?
R. No.
Q. May I appropriately request that during this engagement the rods confirm my recentexperiences by again spelling BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM?
R. No.
Q. May I appropriately be open during this engagement to the rods again spelling BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM?
R. Yes.
As I was later closing this engagement, the rods moved and stopped in the spiritual position in which my engagements are usually concluded. Although I was not at that time expecting any additional movement, the right rod spontaneously moved and spelled BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM, and rotated seven times before returning to the closing spiritual position.
My profound thanks to the All of All for the blessing of my spiritual rodding practice and these wondrous experiences in Baby William’s Memorial Garden.
On Baby William’s 10th Stillbirth-Anniversary
Following the initial experiences I had in the Garden of I AM and BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM, I was there early morning on the 10th anniversary (July 11, 1997) of Baby William’s stillbirth-day. My singular intention during this spiritual rodding engagement was to fully honor both Baby William and his Memorial Garden. Connecting consciously with his spirit, I expressed on behalf of myself and our family how much we love him and honor his place among us, how much he has meant to us during these ten years, how much he will continue to mean to us always, and how proud we are of his spiritual development and growth. I imaged hugging him in my spiritual way. I also communicated my heartfelt gratitude for all the physical aspects of the Garden, not only the family and professional creativity, workmanship, and care so apparent throughout the Garden, but mostly for the uniquely special space this Garden is now. My closing Namaste Amen that day was:
I honor the place in you and your spirit, Baby William, in Grandma and her spirit, in me, in Mimama, in your parents and sisters, in all our family, and in the Spirituality of the Universe that when each of us is in that place we are all one and connected with the All of All. Namaste Amen.
As I was concluding this engagement and was open to the rods moving without any initiative from me, the right rod spontaneously spelled I AM, followed by seven rotations. Then, without any anticipation on my part the left rod moved and spelled I AM BABY WILLIAM, followed by this unsolicited spelling that filled me with joy:
T H A N K S F O R T H E G A R D E N
On behalf of all our family, thank you, Baby William, for all you already are and are becoming.
Linking Baby William’s Colorado Garden and Texas Home
Baby William’s parents have a picturesque piece of lake property in central Texas, which means a lot to them and to their families and friends. They wisely chose this setting as the Texas home for Baby William’s ashes, which are interred in a carefully chosen ceramic container underneath the spreading arms of a sheltering live oak tree. When a lovingly sensitive memorial service was held there in July, 1997, the site was adorned with an appropriate headstone, a stone bench sculpture of a fittingly small bear (an animal icon in our family fondly associated with Baby William while in his mother’s womb), and also in stone a pensive small boy holding a single bird tenderly in his palm. When the Garden was created in Colorado ten years later, his parents thoughtfully and insightfully, with an intention to connect tangibly as well as symbolically Baby William’s Colorado Garden and Texas home, chose to bring one of the original memorials from Texas to become part of the Memorial Garden. They selected the little stone boy, his bent head covered with curly ringlets, tenderly holding a tiny helpless bird in his small, but protective stone hands. Upon arrival, Baby William’s father (Bill) gently placed this meaningful Texas-to-Colorado link in the Garden.
That night I went into the Garden for what I hoped would be a bonding rodding engagement. Not surprising to me, the rods started to move spontaneously as soon as I was seated on Mimama’s Bench and ready to open the engagement. Captivating, though, was what the rods did without any initiative from me. The left rod immediately pointed to the memorial boy and bird from his Texas home, while the right rod rotated many times without stopping. After awhile, I asked through the rods:
Q. Is the left rod pointing to the memorial boy and bird meaningful?
R. Yes.
Q. Is the right rod rotating in some way a spiritual blessing of that memorial piece?
R. Yes.
Spontaneously again, the left rod pointed to the memorial boy and bird, while the right rod rotated seven times before spelling:
L O V E B A B Y W I L L I A M
Rotating another seven times, the right rod stopped, also pointing toward the memorial boy and bird.
Q. Does our love for Baby William contribute somehow to his spiritual self developing and growing?
R. Yes.
Q. Are the movements of the rods and the responses through the rods during this engagement sourced from the All of All?
R. Yes.
Thanks be to the All of All..
