As I worked with the grape vines and trained them up to the direction I want to guide them; I love this vine even more.  That vision I see for them of a lush porch garden, becomes what I see instead of now. 

As I continue to watch the vines closely, each time there is a little more growth, my heart jumps a little.  I softly direct them around another rail and another as they grow longer toward their defining direction. 
There are so many layers of symbolism. It reminded me of a scripture in the bible.  “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”  Proverbs 22:6

I remember hearing this during my time growing up in a religiously focused family.  I heard it in church, out of the mouths of my parents and grandparents, including Poppy.  

When I became a mother, I felt the transfer of responsibility as it weighed heavily on me. To train my child in the way (I thought) he should go so that he will not depart from it. 
In a religious context, this came to mean training ways of our culture and religion and staying faithful within those.  

It  seemed from this that it was the parents responsibility to teach the children the ways of God so that they would remain faithful.  The emphasis being that they do not leave the religious fold, and if they do, you didn’t train them well.   As I found this joy in training my grape vines, I connected an idea.  

Training does not mean training as I had always thought of it.  Like training you to do something a certain way or training to become a certain way.  Training in the sense of these grape vines, is watching and aiding its growth as IT decides how and where to grow.  

A grape vine will grow as long as the growth elements are there, but if it is not directed, it will search and search to find something to latch onto, to give it direction.  If it does not find it, it will not be able to fully grow.

It may even die and will turn into a wild bush where the grapes will not have the space to be expressed.  I pondered this concept as I realized that training is not meant to have a certain outcome.  

Training could be deeper, in a sense of watching for the direction and then flowing with it. Wait.  Wait and watch to see where the vine wants to grow, THEN give it gentle guidance on to its fullest potential.  

Potential is expressed fully within the ways it wants to grow.   Forcing a grape vine to go in a certain way or direction, before it’s ready or big enough, will break it.  It will never be able to grow if it’s forced.

It will keep breaking until there is nothing left of the plant.  If it is gently directed and guided, it will be trained up in a way where the maximum growth and potential will be realized. Growing long and strong.

Every season of growth reinforces the last, as the roots and all the vines strengthen and solidify themselves more with the passing of time, to continue to support more and new growth in every direction possible.  

As I thought about the training I did with my grape vines, another thought came to me.  “That’s what training a child means.  Not forcing or directing them in a certain way for a certain result.  

Grape vines and children are not meant to be forced.  They are meant to be loved and gently guided to their full potential based on where they want to go, not where you want them to go.  

To give a child his full potential and the maximum growth for strength; both need to be cultivated through guidance, not force.  Guiding that precious growth in each child through who HE is.  

When a child and a grapevine receive this kind of cultivation, a bountiful production that will provide beautiful amazing fruit for all its lifetime will be the outcome. I looked at my child and wondered how am I training him?  

I looked at my grapevine and desired it to be bigger than it was, yet I know that I must be patient and wait and watch as it grows so that it can become what I hope for.  I thought of the lines in my family and how we are all connected.  

How who I am is a result of where I came from.  All the experiences I have had that I have learned from and that have made me, me.  Each time I experience something, I learn.  Each time I learn, I know more and do better.  

Each time I do better, it is what grows out of the experiences I had before.  As I become more myself, I become solid in who I am and stronger in what I do.  I am like a grapevine.   

I have some broken places where a force broke me.  Those broken branches, some have grown in different and new directions.  Some just remain as a little stump that never grew again with a little scar. 

It represents something that once was there and was taken.  The whole of the vine, the whole of me; is lush and full of life.  It’s producing good fruits that nourish.  Yes, this is so much like me.  

I remember again that just like when I force myself or others, things get broken. I’m learning that training is gentle and loving.  I nourish myself, and I nourish my children. 

I nourish the energy around me and those I love who come in and out of my space.  What I’m nourishing now is never forced, but lovingly guided in what it already is.  I have learned from experience.