I have not posted anything to my blog in while. I know that is a cardinal sin of blogging, especially if you want your blog to be read. But, I think not hearing someone speak for a while is refreshing. To me, it means they have a life, which they are engaged in living, and they have taken a pause to gather some new experiences.
The last time I published, I was excited about planting the tulips. I didn't make it outside that day and wound up waiting. This past Saturday, on a rare-of-late sunny day whim, I donned some tennies, a hat, and a sweater and cleaned up the garden beds.
There had been a freeze the night before, so all of the south facing dahlias were dangling limply and oddly looking both wet and icy at the same time. They were covered with buds, but I knew their season was over so I sheared them all. On the east side of the house, I gathered the last of the garden fruits, that is, exactly eleven tomatos, two small eggplants, and two turning red bell peppers. There were also three fat, spiky cucumbers. The cherry tomato plant was also covered with small, green tomatos which I left behind because they were weeping from the prior night's freeze. A few other items were left on the plants, too, which I cut down and left to return to the ground.
On the other side of the house -- the west side -- I pulled out several of the gladiolas that had bloomed and were now laying wildly about, some of them pushing other plants in various directions. The glads did not bloom as long or as hardily this year as last; maybe I planted them too late afterall. In place of the dahlias and the all along the west and north sides of the house, I planted tulips. Maybe I had a hundred bulbs total, but I don't know if they will all bloom. Last year, I planted one here and one there and another over there, so they stood lonely in the ground like strangers on the street. This year, I planted them in groups. I hope they bloom in the spring; they will be so pretty.
I was thinking about how this planting and waiting is so exciting and peace giving and easy in the garden. Even though so many things can go wrong -- not enough sun; not enough rain; too much wind; a late freeze; poor soil; and so on -- I have a faith that the plants will come. If not all of them, enough of them will grow to make my efforts worth while. And all winter long, I just wait. I know that I have planted the seeds or the bulbs and they will come. Patience is imposed on me. If only waiting for daily connections, periodic occasions, or life events could be so peace giving. If planting the seeds for them could be so exciting and full of firm expectation. If only the patience imposed on me could be as easy . . . maybe I would be more content and more settled. What do you think?
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Hooray!
At last! The sun has finally returned!
Today I will plant the tulips and participate in a cosmic convergence of last years bulbs, today's work, and next year's glorious blooms, merging the past, present, and future in one activity. I believe that there is an invisible lifestream that flows throughout the universe. I am like a living raft flowing along with the sometimes calm, sometimes swift current. My acts of conduct are the rudders I use to help control my direction. When the current is calm, there is a hidden danger of laziness and I must challenge my self to paddle forward. When the current is swift, there is a hidden danger of overconfidence and I must use all my skill, knowledge, ability, and determination to maintain a measure of control over my direction. Any singular act of conduct -- no matter how small -- affects me. In accordance with the holographic paradigm, the entire universe is affected, too.
There is a destiny that exists by means of the natural laws of our environment. Fire is hot and can incinerate. Water is wet and can saturate. Wind dries and can desiccate and obliterate. If I throw myself into the fire, I am destined to be burned. If I jump into the water, I am destined to get wet. If I stand naked in the wind, I am destined to get cold. But I have the power to change many outcomes by examining my surroundings, analyzing my options, and making informed choices. I move my glass away from the edge of the table; I wear my safety belt when I drive the car; I remove myself from bad association. I keep on asking: What should I do next? What can I give? How can I serve? Is there something that I can share?
Even the singular, simple, humble act of planting is a giving service of life and beauty. I am so grateful to have the opportunity to choose. Living consciously, thus, my life now can be better and better. As for all the rest that is beyond my control, I will wait on YHVH.
Today I will plant the tulips and participate in a cosmic convergence of last years bulbs, today's work, and next year's glorious blooms, merging the past, present, and future in one activity. I believe that there is an invisible lifestream that flows throughout the universe. I am like a living raft flowing along with the sometimes calm, sometimes swift current. My acts of conduct are the rudders I use to help control my direction. When the current is calm, there is a hidden danger of laziness and I must challenge my self to paddle forward. When the current is swift, there is a hidden danger of overconfidence and I must use all my skill, knowledge, ability, and determination to maintain a measure of control over my direction. Any singular act of conduct -- no matter how small -- affects me. In accordance with the holographic paradigm, the entire universe is affected, too.
There is a destiny that exists by means of the natural laws of our environment. Fire is hot and can incinerate. Water is wet and can saturate. Wind dries and can desiccate and obliterate. If I throw myself into the fire, I am destined to be burned. If I jump into the water, I am destined to get wet. If I stand naked in the wind, I am destined to get cold. But I have the power to change many outcomes by examining my surroundings, analyzing my options, and making informed choices. I move my glass away from the edge of the table; I wear my safety belt when I drive the car; I remove myself from bad association. I keep on asking: What should I do next? What can I give? How can I serve? Is there something that I can share?
Even the singular, simple, humble act of planting is a giving service of life and beauty. I am so grateful to have the opportunity to choose. Living consciously, thus, my life now can be better and better. As for all the rest that is beyond my control, I will wait on YHVH.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Checkin' Ya'll Out
I spent some time today looking at a few blogs. There's so much fun stuff. So much variety. Some spooky stuff. Some sad. (The blogs I've seen that seem like spaces for people to be who they can't be to everyone they know in "real" life.) There is an infinite variety of everything, yet much of it is variation on a theme. So be who you are, but don't hurt others in the process. That's my little preachy word for this morning.
Beyond that, I am please to announce that the sky is beginning to look relieved and thoughtful like the cover of a postcard. (What are those tufts of heavy clouds called?) The coolness is more autumn-like and tolerable and I feel like I can exhale. (And unhunch my shoulders from the daunting coldspell.) Maybe I'll get those tulips in the ground afterall. What are your plans for the weekend.
Beyond that, I am please to announce that the sky is beginning to look relieved and thoughtful like the cover of a postcard. (What are those tufts of heavy clouds called?) The coolness is more autumn-like and tolerable and I feel like I can exhale. (And unhunch my shoulders from the daunting coldspell.) Maybe I'll get those tulips in the ground afterall. What are your plans for the weekend.
Rain Quintet
The rain has become relentless.
This evening I attended a jazz set; in fact, it is going on right now. A quintet of sounds surrounding me in three dimensions. Light percussion: the delicate yet forceful spray of icy rain pellets pushing against the house with the force of rising and falling winds. Bass: the immodest syncopated thumping of the rain falling everywhere inside the rain gutter. On piano: a two chime improv entering from the front porch. Special guest: tenor bamboo "cluk-clok-clok". I hear the low whisper of guests in the rush of the rain as it pushes from the gutter and into the grass. An unidentifiable scat of other sounds in low tones brushes past my ear. Undecipherably fantastic, I hear it all. Yet, I crave simple silence. I listen involuntarily to what I don't want to hear. And again, sleep evades me.
My garden is frosted and wilty. My mind is dull and dreamy. I am leaving them both behind, unkempt. I want to drift away in forgetful sleep under the warmth and weight of my feather blanket, but winter is entering me now. I am becoming pain all the time.
I can't escape the raw truth outside. The storm sounds soothe me and hurt me as I am suspended between awe and agony. Do you ever feel this way too?
This evening I attended a jazz set; in fact, it is going on right now. A quintet of sounds surrounding me in three dimensions. Light percussion: the delicate yet forceful spray of icy rain pellets pushing against the house with the force of rising and falling winds. Bass: the immodest syncopated thumping of the rain falling everywhere inside the rain gutter. On piano: a two chime improv entering from the front porch. Special guest: tenor bamboo "cluk-clok-clok". I hear the low whisper of guests in the rush of the rain as it pushes from the gutter and into the grass. An unidentifiable scat of other sounds in low tones brushes past my ear. Undecipherably fantastic, I hear it all. Yet, I crave simple silence. I listen involuntarily to what I don't want to hear. And again, sleep evades me.
My garden is frosted and wilty. My mind is dull and dreamy. I am leaving them both behind, unkempt. I want to drift away in forgetful sleep under the warmth and weight of my feather blanket, but winter is entering me now. I am becoming pain all the time.
I can't escape the raw truth outside. The storm sounds soothe me and hurt me as I am suspended between awe and agony. Do you ever feel this way too?
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Slug Transformation
When I came home late last evening, a huge slug was beginning a climb up the side of the house. I took a photo, but am having a problem uploading pictures to my blog. But that's not the largest problem. It seems, based on the way I have been feeling these cold, dark mornings of late, that I am transforming into a human slug. Tucked away under many blankets, even the eternal impulse to move seems to have died out as I lie there like a corpse. Is that the reason why I keep brewing that morning cup of coffee?
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Sudden Storm
The weather changed suddenly this past Sunday. In the afternoon, I contemplated having a party in the yard but decided we would bake in the sun because the yard faces south. As we set up the chairs and tables in the dining room, a dark coolness grew outside. By the time the first guests arrived, a light sprinkle had begun. This rain carried on and became a full shower. My last soggy guests' shoes brought wet leaves and pieces of stick that I forgot to sweep off the front path. We left the door open in the living room in order to get more light, and we ate and drank and laughed in the dining room and kitchen. Gradually, in small sets of twos and threes, my guests put on their shoes and left, some of them running to their cars as if they could avoid getting wet.
After everyone was gone I washed the dishes and cleaned up. The house was warm and still held a happy party spirit. But the rain was even stronger and the wind twirled around the house outside as if angry that we didn't invite it to the party. When I finally went to bed, I listened to the wild, angry storm outside and compared it to the steady quiet of my husband's breathing. I didn't sleep well and got up to watch television for a while. The wind was blowing at 45 miles per hour.
In the morning, I tried to defy the wind and the cold by wearing a simple shirt to work. I ran from the house to the garage and from my car to my office building, and I kept the heater on most of the day. My joints and muscles ached so I skipped dance class and dreaded the coming of winter. When I returned home with my grandson later that evening, my garbage cans had blown down the alley. He laughed delightedly as I skittered about outside in high heels turning up the garbage cans from the muddy lot next door and rolling them back to the house. But inside the house was still warm and toasty and we ignored the cold as we built and destroyed domino towers together. I didn't sleep well again.
By Tuesday, the wind had died down but the cold remained. I was defeated and put on a sweater and my trenchcoat. I walked to the car instead of running and I only needed the heater for the last half of the day, but the storm had gotten inside of me and I had an angry confrontation with a co-worker. In the evening, I sat through class with burning eyes. My head hurt, my heart was unsteady, and I craved sleep. I thought about the gladiolas in the garden. I planted 50 of them in August, but they were shallow in the ground so I had to stake them all. Two of them had snapped under the force of the water from the sprinkler and I had braced them with pencils and secured them with Band-Aids. The wind had beaten them and now they were sprawled crazily in all different directions, yet in bloom and adding depth and dimension to the garden. The dahlias heavy heads hung over, their faces looking at the grass. I wondered how the Brussels Sprouts are doing. Have they been covered with slugs because of the rain? Or has it been too windy and cold for them to come above ground? What about today now that the sun has decided to come out for a while? Is it still too cold?
I glanced at the yard as I grabbed the paper this morning and saw all my garden joy hiding behind cold weather work. I thought about the 150 or so tulip bulbs I have to plant from last years flowers. So much beauty is waiting to be seen. This is how life is, isn't it? So much beauty is waiting to be seen. So many simple pleasures and islands of joy waiting to share themselves with us. Just behind the work; just behind a little bit of time; right there. Don't you see it?
After everyone was gone I washed the dishes and cleaned up. The house was warm and still held a happy party spirit. But the rain was even stronger and the wind twirled around the house outside as if angry that we didn't invite it to the party. When I finally went to bed, I listened to the wild, angry storm outside and compared it to the steady quiet of my husband's breathing. I didn't sleep well and got up to watch television for a while. The wind was blowing at 45 miles per hour.
In the morning, I tried to defy the wind and the cold by wearing a simple shirt to work. I ran from the house to the garage and from my car to my office building, and I kept the heater on most of the day. My joints and muscles ached so I skipped dance class and dreaded the coming of winter. When I returned home with my grandson later that evening, my garbage cans had blown down the alley. He laughed delightedly as I skittered about outside in high heels turning up the garbage cans from the muddy lot next door and rolling them back to the house. But inside the house was still warm and toasty and we ignored the cold as we built and destroyed domino towers together. I didn't sleep well again.
By Tuesday, the wind had died down but the cold remained. I was defeated and put on a sweater and my trenchcoat. I walked to the car instead of running and I only needed the heater for the last half of the day, but the storm had gotten inside of me and I had an angry confrontation with a co-worker. In the evening, I sat through class with burning eyes. My head hurt, my heart was unsteady, and I craved sleep. I thought about the gladiolas in the garden. I planted 50 of them in August, but they were shallow in the ground so I had to stake them all. Two of them had snapped under the force of the water from the sprinkler and I had braced them with pencils and secured them with Band-Aids. The wind had beaten them and now they were sprawled crazily in all different directions, yet in bloom and adding depth and dimension to the garden. The dahlias heavy heads hung over, their faces looking at the grass. I wondered how the Brussels Sprouts are doing. Have they been covered with slugs because of the rain? Or has it been too windy and cold for them to come above ground? What about today now that the sun has decided to come out for a while? Is it still too cold?
I glanced at the yard as I grabbed the paper this morning and saw all my garden joy hiding behind cold weather work. I thought about the 150 or so tulip bulbs I have to plant from last years flowers. So much beauty is waiting to be seen. This is how life is, isn't it? So much beauty is waiting to be seen. So many simple pleasures and islands of joy waiting to share themselves with us. Just behind the work; just behind a little bit of time; right there. Don't you see it?
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Slug Hotel
Today's battle? About 50 slugs on my Brussels Sprouts plant. Leaves and sprouts; large and small slugs. My reply? A manual couterattack of knocking slugs into a plastic container and dumping them in the street. To my amazement, even in the container they were rapidly slugging up the sides to escape. If I could eat them, I would have had a nicely-sized hors d'ouevres tray! Not to worry, neither my sense of humor nor my occasional streak of vengeance stretch quite that far. But as I trudged in the wet grass back and forth from plants to street, I eased into a state of patient determination.
The slugs quietly, purposefully, and with surprising quickness trailed along the plants, eating as though at the day spa. How can I transfer this slug-like quality into my life? Where and when is it most appropriate? Each day brings its own challenges and its own opportunities. During times of challenge, the quiet serenity and persistant forward motion of my garden foes will serve me well. When opportunity appears, creating something like a mucus path to help move myself along at just the right time will be the beginning of my triumph.
Each morning now, I realize I will have to meet the slugs at the Brussels Sprouts patch and stick, pick, and knock them down -- a battle of the truest type. In the same way, I will see my challenges in life and then look at them, assess the situation, prepare myself for battle by gathering the right tools and developing a strategy. Then quietly, calmly, steadily I will remove them one-by-one. My attitude becomes my mucus-path and eventually, I win.
Thank you, slugs, for today's lesson.
The slugs quietly, purposefully, and with surprising quickness trailed along the plants, eating as though at the day spa. How can I transfer this slug-like quality into my life? Where and when is it most appropriate? Each day brings its own challenges and its own opportunities. During times of challenge, the quiet serenity and persistant forward motion of my garden foes will serve me well. When opportunity appears, creating something like a mucus path to help move myself along at just the right time will be the beginning of my triumph.
Each morning now, I realize I will have to meet the slugs at the Brussels Sprouts patch and stick, pick, and knock them down -- a battle of the truest type. In the same way, I will see my challenges in life and then look at them, assess the situation, prepare myself for battle by gathering the right tools and developing a strategy. Then quietly, calmly, steadily I will remove them one-by-one. My attitude becomes my mucus-path and eventually, I win.
Thank you, slugs, for today's lesson.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Daybreak
I have seen the light and it is bright! As surely as I can trust that morning is coming, I trust that those of us who don't get and stay connected will be left behind. I'm trying to think of a movie where that happens . . . where the weak one, the unprepared one, the injured one, the stubborn one just gets left behind. Can you think of one? It seems so cruel, but it's just how life is. So here I am grabbing this opportunity to share via a blog, finally. Actually, I planned on starting one when blogging was first becoming popular. I don't quite remember what happened, but memory lapses come more frequently than they used to. Does that happen to you? Anyway, here I am with my Facebook page (which, by the way, my 20-some year old created for me despite my protests), my Storm (love! my Blackberry Storm), Twitter, my blog, my webpage, and I just entered my email in another blank field so that I can be notified when Ping comes around. But, you know what? It's tiring. Fun, interesting, connecting, but tiring. Where do I go for retreat? Where else? My garden.
I have seen the light and it is bright! For all this technology, all this reaching out making mad webs of invisibly connected networks, for all this tweeting and texting and updating, what I really want more than anything else is alone time -- barefooted in the cool, wet grass; cup of lukewarm, sweet, milky coffee in my favorite cup; barely awake; water wand on the shower setting as I wet the soil, the leaves, the flowers, the mulch, the grass; disappearing into the quiet life around my home. Garden life. Urban garden life.
I have seen the light and it is bright! Am I breathless from trying to keep up with the rushing change? Or is it that the sunrise is slowly drawing out the multiplicity of colors in the yard and the profound beauty takes my breath away? Have you seen this, too?
I have seen the light and it is bright! For all this technology, all this reaching out making mad webs of invisibly connected networks, for all this tweeting and texting and updating, what I really want more than anything else is alone time -- barefooted in the cool, wet grass; cup of lukewarm, sweet, milky coffee in my favorite cup; barely awake; water wand on the shower setting as I wet the soil, the leaves, the flowers, the mulch, the grass; disappearing into the quiet life around my home. Garden life. Urban garden life.
I have seen the light and it is bright! Am I breathless from trying to keep up with the rushing change? Or is it that the sunrise is slowly drawing out the multiplicity of colors in the yard and the profound beauty takes my breath away? Have you seen this, too?
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