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Arborvitae

My arborvitae survived the winter, but they have interesting shapes--a full head of hair on top and a flouncy skirt at the bottom. In between, one is see-through. The other has an hour-glass figure.  

I tried to save them from the deer by covering them in Christmas lights, though i'm not sure that strategy worked.

How many strategies do we use to save ourselves from dukkha. We give advice. We take advice. The Buddha tells us straight. Clinging is the cause of suffering. How to stop suffering is to stop wanting things to be different than they are.

Can i be happy with hour-glass arborvitae?

Call Me Crazy

On Wednesday afternoon, before the predicted snow of Thursday and Friday, i planted my banana tree outdoors near the back door, in the semi-shade of the north side of the house.

You know what happened.

The question is: Did i suffer? 

Did you stress out in reading this little vignette? Did you have an opinion? Or make up a story?

I "knew" that the temperature would be above freezing. (It went down to 37 degrees.)

So, i wasn't stressed. I tell this story as a joke on myself because i want you to notice the relief of tension. Snow! Oh no! Whew! Everything's okay, after all.

It is possible to have no story and no opinion. No judgment. And therefore no stress.

Generosity Blooms

One of the last errands i ran before leaving for Florida for 2 weeks was delivering pots of budding tulips to friends. I gave one to Karen, a Master Gardener friend. Three weeks later, they are still blooming.

This is what happens when you allow generosity to bloom in your heart.

What easy (and maybe fun) thing could you give to a friend today?

Lotus

 

Lotus is an often-used image in the Buddha's teachings. Part of the devotional ritual includes offering a lotus, 3 sticks of incense, and a candle to a statue of the Buddha.

I don't find lotus in the North Country where i live, so i was happy to see it in hot and sunny Florida.

The magic of lotus leaves is that they self-clean; they don't collect water.

Wouldn't i love to have a self-cleaning mind?

Mindfulness is the quickest self-cleaner. Mindfulness of this moment doesn't allow gunk from those past moments to accumulate. Past gunk is washed away by the present moment.

No future fog either, because the present is all there is.

Just look at that lotus with its roots in the mud, standing beautifully in the water of Life.

I Want. I Don't Want

In the rush to catch up with spring at home, i conveniently forget that it is time to tick-spray all my clothes. I don't want to. I want to go out to the daffodil garden. I want. I don't want.

I don't want to spray my clothes. I also don't want ticks biting me. I do not want Lyme disease.

I throw a drawerful of shirts down the stairs. I hang them up in the woodshed. I spray them. Three hours later, i take them off the hangers and cart them back to their drawer. I throw the next drawer full of undershirts down the stairs. Etcetera. Etcetera.

The civil war of the mind: I don't want. I want. I don't want. 

Flying Home

We flew home from Florida yesterday. This early morning, before dawn, i heard Canada geese flying north. Homeward bound to Canada.

Where is home anyway? Do you have a place that feels like home? 

I didn't recognize falling in love with my sweetie. He simply felt like home. Comfortable. No fireworks. Restful. Contentment. I didn't need to go anywhere else. I didn't wish for anyone different.

Every morning i take refuge in the Buddha. I take refuge in the Dharma. I take refuge in the sangha. That's my spiritual home. Not a physical place and not dependent on a physical being, although i deeply appreciate the beings in my various sanghas. Refuge--a place of safety. Home.

Your Mind is a Garden

"Your mind is a garden;

your thoughts are the seeds."

So are you growing flowers? Or weeds?

I recently taught a class on the Noble Eightfold Path. One of the first investigations we did was to divide our thoughts into wholesome and unwholesome. Do this for 3 minutes during your next meditation.

Once you become aware of the unwholesome, the unskillful, the "weeds," you can apply the antidotes.

Loving-kindness and patience antidote just about everything.

You can practice loving-kindness during meditation or on a walk or while you are driving or while you are washing the dishes. You can grow flowers in your mind all day every day.

Amaryllis Blooming

At home, my amaryllis are just starting to bloom. In the gardens at the University of Florida, amaryllis are blooming full-blast.

Notice how close the stems are to each other. That means the bulbs are packed together tightly, sort of like daffodil bulbs for us in the North Country.

It looks like the closely packed bulbs encourage each other to bloom. If we stay in close touch with our Dharma friends and a Dharma teacher or two, they encourage us to bloom in the Dharma.

Blue-Eyed Grass

On my walk this morning, i saw blue-eyed grass growing on the roadside. I love blue-eyed grass. Such a simple wildflower. A single blue flower on a single stem of grass. I've tried growing it and always lost it. Today i saw it in profusion--growing in sand (read: limestone) in Florida (read: hot). I don't have those conditions in my garden.

In meditation, i don't have the proper conditions for the meditative absorptions, which require deep concentration. To some people, deep concentration comes easily, naturally, even spontaneously.

I am content with what i have--good enough concentration and deep enough insights to understand. And if, once in a great while, a beautiful concentration arises, i am at peace with what is. No blue-eyed grass in my garden. Not much concentration in my meditation.

Florida Lobelia

 

Lobelia grows wild along the roadside in the Florida panhandle. It's a short, light blue flower here.

I love recognizing the close cousins of familiar flower friends when i travel to new habitats. So often, in a new place, it takes a while before i recognize the features of a place. Stopping the car on the side of the road to look closely at the bluish haze of wildflowers reveals my old friend Lobelia.

Not being a people person, i often look at new people as strangers. My sweetie, on the other hand, has never met a stranger. He chats up everyone and has them smiling within a couple of minutes. His mission in life is to bring joy to everyone he meets. He inspires me to do likewise.

This kind of inspiring friendship supports us in practicing kindness in ways that may not come naturally to us. I can look at strangers along the road and say "Hello Friend."

Rusted Vehicles

Today, our local tour began with Rusted Ford Trucks on the side of the road. I recognized two or three of my grandfather's 1940s and 1950s trucks. I recognized my Aunt Jenny's 1949 Ford sedan. All the vehicles completely rusted--rather like my body.

My sweetie and i looked at the new cars on the road and the rental Kia we are driving. In 20 or 50 or 70 years, they will look so old-fashioned, so rusty, so impossible to imagine as new. Just as children and young people cannot imagine that we were ever their age. They are young, and we are old. Thus has it ever been.

My dear Ford Ranger truck--the one i use to haul manure, wood chips, mulch, mulch hay, and dozens of plants--even it will, one of these days, rust in peace.

Azaleas in Bloom

We escaped mud season and fled to Florida since we have both been double jabbed. Down here (near Tallahassee), young leaves are just coming out in spring green. Azaleas are in bloom everywhere!

Spring is indeed sprung. A unique smell is in the air--beautiful and delicious. To someone from north Florida, this is how home smells, especially in the moonlit evening.

How does home smell? Indescribable, yet so familiar.

When we come home to our heart of hearts, the feeling is indescribable. And so familiar.  Take a few tries at describing the indescribable. Calm. Peaceful. At ease. Safe. This is one description of love.

Hawk Watching

 A hawk perches on a tree overlooking our bird feeders. The little birds come and go--chickadees, nuthatches, titmice, woodpeckers. A few bold ones flit in the same tree the hawk sits in.

Finally, we hear a thud on the deck. The little birds carry on eating at the bird feeder as if nothing has happened.

When death strikes an acquaintance, we carry on in our own lives, going about our business.

This morning Death was perched in a tree. Some flitted around it. Death strikes. Life goes on.

Snowdrops in the Snow

Snowdrops are blooming. Where there was snow yesterday, there are snowdrops today.

Change runs rampant. Notice that every noun is a slow-moving verb. Snow--here today, gone tomorrow. So many different kinds of snow. Each snowflake different than any other, so what does "snowflake" mean anyway?

Snowdrops arise. They are beautiful. You know what comes next. Keep your eye closely attuned to the process, the processes. The process of snowdrop-ing.

First Day of Spring

By the time you read this, spring will already have sprung--at 5:37 a.m. Eastern. Good-bye winter. 

Dare i start waving good-bye to the pandemic? 26% of the people in our state have received at least their first shot.

The Buddha frames the teaching of the 4 Ennobling Tasks as a doctor might.

Dx--our diagnosis--Suffering (dissatisfaction, discontent, lack) exists.

Hx--the history--Craving causes suffering.

Px--our prognosis--Cessation: suffering can come to an end.

Rx--our remedy--the 8-fold Ennobling Path

The diagnosis of COVID on our planet can come to an end if we take the remedy--one or two jabs of a vaccine.

Welcome Spring!

It's Time to Sow Poppy Seeds

It's time to sow poppy seeds on whatever remains of the snow. Another three weeks, and it will be too late. If you want some annual poppy seeds, PM me now.

Would you like this wonderful watermelon color? Or purple?

Chickadee Grief

I am grieving a crippled chickadee, whom I last saw on Monday, March 8. Her wings were fluttering that day, as if she had lost even more mobility in her legs and toes. For a month, she had been skooching on the deck or railing like a double amputee in India sitting on cardboard and propelling himself with his hands.

That Monday morning, she was hanging upside down by her toes. In previous days, I had seen her grip a branch or wire with both toes and slowly slide backwards until she was upside down. She would flutter her wings to bring herself back to upright. She repeated these chin-ups five or ten times. She was panting; I could see her back wing feathers move up and down two or three times a second.

That last morning, I put sunflower seeds in the coffee grinder and ground them finely. She didn't seem to have the leverage to peck a sunflower seed to bits. Usually a chickadee holds a sunflower seed between her two feet and pecks and pecks at it. Chickadee beaks are very small. Other birds swallow sunflower hearts whole, but the chickadee breaks it into bits and eats the bits.

Her handicap enabled me to distinguish one chickadee from the dozen that visit our birdfeeder, distinguish her from the two or three chickadees that eat out of my hand.

I knew the end was near. I didn't see her the rest of that day. I kept looking for her all week. Then I had to admit she was gone. Gone.

The next day the weather was warm. Oh, if only she could have lived to feel warm weather. Had her feet frozen one zero degree night? I would never know.

I try to assuage my grief with various stories. Already she has returned to earth somewhere. Already some creature has eaten her corpse. Already she has been incorporated into owl or possum. The life cycle has moved, and I am stuck in missing her.

Flower Chaplain

 The pots of tulips i planted in December were shooting green, so i brought some of them indoors to bud. 

My sweetie and i are making a jail break next week-- flying to Florida. So i delivered 3 pots of budding tulips last evening--one to a grieving widow, one to a cancer survivor, one to an always-helpful friend. Call me the Flower Chaplain.

A handful of my friends are chaplains, and i've wondered whether i could be one. But i don't have quite the right personality type. No matter. 

I can offer the hope of spring to those who are ill, the message of change to those who are grieving.

Chipmunks Awake!

Chipmunks have awoken from their long winter's nap. They don't hibernate; they are dormant, asleep in their dens. As such, they are at the mercy of any burrowing predator. But one (so far) has survived the frozen earth and is running around searching for food.

When we wake up enough to realize we've been sort of sleepwalking through our lives, where do we go for sustenance?

A spiritual path, of whatever stripe, answers the deeper calling within, which has been buried by career, marriage, children, and all sorts of other distractions. What about your hunger? The one you can't quite name. The one you can't quite put your finger on.

Come home. Come home to the here and the now.