Orange Juice

 

Sharon, a California friend, sends me a photo of the orange tree in her back yard. 

Encased in frigid weather here in the North Country, i can't even imagine walking outdoors in bare feet to go pick an orange for breakfast. Fresh squeezed orange juice sounds like heaven.

Yesterday, my spiritual friends group heard from a woman who has a still mind. Unimaginable to the rest of us. Yet, quietude, and eventually, stillness, is one of the fruits of the spiritual life. No mind; no self; no problem.

No problem that i am walking barefoot in the snow.

Breakfast with a Heron

Our 3-star hotel sits in front of a marina, so last night and this morning, i took a beach chair out of the trunk, so i could sit and watch the water while i ate a warmed-over breakfast (last night's dinner). Just below me a heron waded in the water, as if she didn't even see me.

She was eating her breakfast too, poking her bill into the sand, grabbing something-or-other, and gulp-gulp, swallowing down her long throat.

Just think of all the emotions we swallow every day. We swallow our feelings because we are adults--we are not children who freely express every little emotional cloud that blows through their small bodies.

As adults we swallow our feelings, and there they lodge, stuck in the body. Sometimes, you can literally read another person's emotions by the (somatic) complaint/illness in their body. For instance, my sweetie's back used to go out every time i left home for a week. "You're mad at me," i would tell him. He denied it for several years until a male friend told him that a lot of lower back problems are caused by stuffed anger. That's when my sweetie looked inside and said, "Yes, i get mad at you when you abandon me for a week." After that, his back didn't go out again for 20 years.

"House" Plants Living Outside the House

We are in Puerto Rico for a yoga retreat. Walking into town for breakfast, we passed by this collection of "house"plants--all living outdoors, suspended on a tree.

The Buddha suggests that meditators seclude themselves in an empty hut or at the base of tree. These potted plants are secluded from the heat of the sun by the shade of this big tree in someone's front yard.

I am renting an Airbnb condo, which is not exactly a secluded hut, but at 7:00 in the morning, i Skype with a meditation friend, and we sit together in cyberspace for an hour--secluded from all the possibilities that life has to offer.

In this way, we clear away the clutter of life to make time for what really matters.

Cherry Tomatoes for Breakfast

A cherry tomato plant grew in my compost pile. Two months ago, at the first frost, i picked the (mostly) green tomatoes and brought them in to the kitchen, where they've been ripening ever since. My sweetie fries a few tomatoes for breakfast every morning, so he's almost at the end of our surplus. Good thing, because the tomatoes are beginning to wrinkle.

It brings us great joy to still have a summer harvest as winter begins, in earnest, tomorrow. A taste of summer. A taste of joy.

The End of Chard Season

The end of Swiss chard season is fast approaching, and my sweetie is picking grocery bags full of rainbow chard. This morning i used half a bag to make Eggs Florentine. It's a good thing chard cooks down from a heaping mound to barely half-a-skillet-ful.

I caramelized some onions and garlic, chopped the chard, and let it simmer with a lid on. Then i added bits of feta cheese and made nests in the chard for 4 eggs. Ten minutes later, we were eating a delicious breakfast.

Chard is a good substitute for spinach, which i have never successfully grown. Chard lasts and lasts, from May into November, and it doesn't bolt. The flavor is a bit stronger than spinach; chard is in the beet family.

Some of us choose meditation as a substitute for our previous religious tradition. And some of us still practice both.

Meditation has lasted me more than half my lifetime. And i usually have it before breakfast.
 

Death in the Garden

Death comes, unexpectedly, to the garden of Eden here at the end of a dirt road. This morning, while we were eating breakfast on the deck, we heard a kerfuffle of birds in the nearby woods. Bill saw a crow for a second, we heard more songbird chirps and chatters, then i saw the crow flying low through the woods. I guess he was having his breakfast too.

When i went out to feed the fish in our tiny fishpond, i found the remains of a goldfish carcass on the adjoining terrace. Raccoon, i suppose. Last night.

I bury the 2-inch carcass under a nearby plant and contemplate the cycle of life.

Flies having breakfast