A Bit of Earth: The Secret Garden 1993
Earth Day 2025
When I feel hopeless and need a reminder things grow even when we can’t see them I watch The Secret Garden. There’s a bunch of remakes, but this is the best one fight with a wall. Filmed with a nod to the melancholy Brontes, the story is about Mary Lennox, recently orphaned at 10 years who is taken from her home in India to her nearest of kin at Misselthwaite Manor on the Yorkshire Moors.
With no friends, solitary upbringing, and neglectful parents, Mary is portrayed as sullen and a spoiled BITCH. Lowkey wondering if she’s a Taurus since she loves a good bed, clothes, planting shit and looking like this:
Her Uncle, Lord Craven, is a lonely widower whose wife died under mysterious circumstances the same year Mary was born. She is Mary’s mother’s twin sister.
Lord Craven is a fucking dreamboat who travels the world to avoid his problems and fails epically at it. Probably a Scorpio lol. Lots of shots of him being sad hot with his hair in the wind. They knew their audience.
Forced to amuse herself, the stern housekeeper Medlock, (badass Maggie Smith) sends Mary out to the moors and family gardens to fuck around and get out of her hair.
GOD the coloring. 😍
Anyway.
Through a series of encounters, Mary becomes aware of The Robin, an animal ally who seems determined to show her what’s behind the blocked off wall of ivy separate from the rest of the gardens. Mary knows the value of paying attention and through some great sleuthing, finds the key and breaks in.
Toddling into the secret garden, you’ve guessed it! This is where Lady Craven died in her favorite garden, somehow falling off her swing (that is barley off the ground but like ok). Def a wind spirit lurking about the place that is giving her tbh.
Lord Craven went nuts as overly obsessive Scorpios do and went “TIME FOR A GRIEF SECRET I LOVE KEYS AND BEING DRAMATIC 🔑 😍 🤪 "
Blocked it up “forever.” But the groundskeeper and the Robin have tended to it until a family member came along to break the curse. Enter: Mary.
Mary befriends an indigenous landkeeper named Dickon, a local village boy. He talks to animals and teaches that the garden is in fact, very alive despite being overrun by tangles and winter frost. It’s “wick”, alive!” Dickon is fucking cool and knows alot of shit without being a know it all.
He shows Mary how to give the plants (and herself) room to grow and breathe. As she spends more time co creating with the earth and getting fresh air, her disposition lightens and her curiosity grows as she sees possibilities emerging around her. She’s regulating and finding a purpose in something outside of herself. 🎉
Here arrives Colin, a whiny self absorbed Aries IMHO. Colin is Lord Craven’s song who is also locked away from his cousin. From birth, Colin was considered insipid (fair), ill (meh) and destined to die. The Brits really got off on everyone dying easily.
Poor young “Master Colin’s” never seen the light of day with windows boarded to protect his lungs from “spores” which is giving me with a hangover. Yeah, we feel bad for Colin, but Colin also represents those of us who whine without making any effort at mental or physical improvement. Instead he flops around with a “woe is me” attitude that Mary spots right away and calls bullshit. “No one whose dying could scream like THAT.” she says after a particularly good tantrum. Their fights are really great and Mary delivers some zingers:
Mary and Colin create a friendship, fighting one minute and bonding over dead moms and absent parents the next. Naturally, they convince the staff to let him go to the gardens. As Colin spends time outdoors, he becomes calmer, stronger and clear headed. He begins to wonder at life’s possibilities as he sees the garden creating new life around him.
Dickon and Mary realize he needs this just as much as they do and through positive self talk, visualization techniques and some powerful manifesting, they help Colin take his first steps. Colin’s not dying! No longer enabled, he discovers the powerful medicine we all need no matter our circumstance; fresh air, activity, and room to grow and take space.
They don’t know what they’re doing is manifesting, they’re just children who are paying attention to their intuition and rhythms of the earth. Adults forget we have ability inside of us. We forget what presence can do.
Mary tells a story to Colin about the god who had the whole universe in his throat. He calls bullshit. When Colin begins to walk in the garden, he asks Mary: “Are you making this magic?”
She replies “No you are.”
Colin realizes: “It’s like you said, the universe is in here” and touches his chest.
That moment never fails to catch a lump in my throat. I remember myself.
Once Colin is living his truth, he wants everyone to witness it and be freed from their narratives about him and themselves. The children sneak out under a full moon and conduct a ritual to call Lord Craven home since they can’t do snail mail. Old Matlock will sabotage their efforts cuz she’s poor as hell and terrified of getting fired. The ritual unfolds naturally, led by the flow of their desires and the deep mystical trust all children can access.
On the other side of the globe, Lord Craven is visited by his wife in a dream. “I’m in the garden with Colin" she sings indicating her presence there watching over him as he heals their family curse by facing his own. Lord Craven returns and discovers Colin playing in the garden. The family embraces, and life and laughter are brought back to Misselthwaite.
The Secret Garden highlights ways we avoid grief, each other and ourselves and the dangers of disconnecting from the beauty in the earth that grounds us. It reminds us of the infinite wisdom and healing teachings Mother Earth and her indigenous keepers have to share with us.
“The spell was broken. My uncle learned to laugh, and I learned to cry. The secret garden is always open now. Open, and awake, and alive. If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.” Mary Lennox
This Earth day, I hope you never forget that we owe the world our care, and in turn we are shown wonders, inspiration and healing beyond our greatest imaginings. Put the phone down and be with it. 🌎 💚
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