Welcome and Unwelcome

 This morning i meditated outdoors on the deck at 6:00 a.m. The temperature was balmy and the breeze light. The sun didn't rise until after meditation ended at 7:00.

Welcome December.

I haven't meditated outdoors for more than a month, but if it's over 50 degrees, i sit on the deck and meditate with the birds and the squirrel. (They are doing eating meditation.)

It's too warm for December, and that's unwelcome, but the day was delightful. So easy to spend it outdoors doing some more last-minute chores. Putting up Christmas lights was fun.

We welcome even the unwelcome.

Tiny Library on the Beach

Most Decembers, i send my annual book of writings to friends and family as a Christmas present. (Email me your snail mail address if you want your own copy--cheryl.wilfong@gmail.com)

My sweetie took the book on vacation to Aruba. These reflection books are perfect beach reading--a collection of essays, so you can start reading and stop anywhere.

Bill finished reading All My Relations and left it in a Tiny Library on the beach at Boca Catalina, where the snorkeling is good.

Passing the book on to all my relations whom i don't even know.

Season for the Squeezin'

Citrus season is here, as fresh oranges and grapefruit come to the supermarket, and fundraisers are offering boxes of citrus. Back in the day, an orange or a tangerine in your Christmas stocking was a great treat.

I pull the juicer out of deep storage and squeeze fresh orange juice for breakfast. Or how about freshly-squeezed grapefruit juice?

Although we can buy orange juice any day of the week, and although we can buy oranges and grapefruits every week at the grocery store, those fruits have probably been in storage. The season for fresh citrus is now through about April, when the juicer returns to deep storage.

It seems odd that the cold season in the North is the harvest season for citrus in the South. The end of life is the time when we harvest a lifetime's worth of learning.

A friend in California is dying just now. Her request was to be in solitude, to not be bothered by visitors. Her close family is close by as she silently harvests the lessons of this life, as she has one foot on the dock and one foot in the boat that will carry her away.

Really Big Pine Cones

When we were traveling in northern, northern California and southern Oregon last summer, i stopped on the roadside and picked up some pine cones. Really big pine cones that were 16 inches long! These are the cones of the sugar pine.

My women's group has an annual wreath making party, so i took my bag of sugar pine cones and big fat Jeffrey pine cones to give to my dear women friends.

One sugar pine cone remained. I brought it home and spray-painted it with silver glitter. Add one bow and some Christmas balls, and voila! A centerpiece, which i gave to my step-daughter's family as a Christmas present, since we've already had our Christmas with them.

The joy of giving. And i especially love giving homemade gifts, made with love.

Amaryllis Blooming

My amaryllis are blooming one by one. Lovely pink Susan is fading. Now a white-and-green-and-pink one is blooming (Rembrandt?) on a stem that is 3 feet (!) tall.

Sometimes people complain to me that their amaryllis didn't bloom at Christmas. Well, neither does mine. I keep my from year to year, and left to their own devices, they seem to bloom, one by one, from December into April, although someone told me their amaryllis bloomed in July.

Our meditation practice doesn't unfold on time schedule we want. Hey, our life doesn't unfold on the time schedule we wanted either.

Life unfolds. Simply be with the beauty of that.

Last Christmas Present

Bill's last Christmas present arrived in the mail yesterday. One of those little gizmos you attach to your wallet, your phone, your keys, your dog, so that, when you lose them, you can find them.*

Fair, the cleaning lady, brought me a present yesterday--2 gigantic poinsettias. The owner of the house she cleaned earlier in the day was about to throw them out, but she said she would take them.

This was our welcome home present from our vacation in the Caribbean. I feel like the tropics followed us home. A final Christmas present.

Thanks to the generosity of Fair.



* For the further adventures of Bill's lost wallet, read Lost but Found.

Red and Green on the Front Step

The decoration on my front step is a flowerpot filled with greens and a gazing globe. I used red-twig dogwood for a spark of red, and i discovered some red maple saplings sprouting out of a stump. I hung some tarnished Christmas balls on the reddish twigs, and voila! Christmas decorations.

The red-twig dogwood is especially decorative in this season, and shows up particularly well on this, our first, snowy day.

I do like a plant that performs in at least two seasons, and, preferably, three.  Red-twig dogwood has red twigs for winter and spring and variegated leaves for summer and fall.

We want a spiritual path that is going to support us in all the seasons of our life, particularly the season of cold and dark.

Red-twig dogwood

Amaryllis Blooms

I received a distress call/email in late January from Stella who said her amaryllis were not blooming. What should she do?

Even though we give and receive amaryllis at Christmas, and often those bulbs bloom shortly thereafter, i find that the amaryllis that i keep from year to year bloom in late March and in April. Right now i have 4 amaryllis in bloom or bud.

Stella thinks her house wasn't warm enough; she gave the amaryllis to her mother, and it bloomed immediately. My passive-solar house has been baking every sunny day for more than a month, and the amaryllis are coming on like gangbusters now.

Life--and amaryllis--don't unfold as we think it should. We want it one way (a blooming amaryllis, for instance), but something else is happening (nothing, for instance). These aggravations, bothers, and harrumphs are called stress.

We can pile a lot of additional stress by creating a story about what a bad gardener i am or what a bad plant amaryllis is. Stop.

Look at your amaryllis bulb. The one with the strappy green leaves. Non-judgementally. Not wishing for anything different than what is.

Look at the aggravating person in your life right now. No story. Let your heart simply look at that person for one second. The story will quickly return. Notice where, somewhere in your body, something tenses up. Is the stress worth it?

Feel your own heart. Tenderly. And take good care of it. Your heart will bloom too.

The Prodigal Paperwhite

I started some paperwhites in November. When they still hadn't bloomed, after Christmas, and i was leaving home for 3 weeks, i gave them away. One i left here for the housesitter, and when we returned, one bulb was in bloom.

Apparently i have much more patience with plants than with people, because i couldn't bear to pitch out the other 3 bulbs in the container that seemed to be stuck at an inch tall. So i've been waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

One of those bulbs bloomed today! Three months after i started it. The slow-starter gives me joy, like a Prodigal Son. I had thought it never would show up.

Life unfolds on its own, according to its own pace. Life doesn't happen on my schedule, doesn't happen on my calendar. (Though i often like to believe that it does or that it will.)  Life has its own internal calendar. Life. Happens.

A Blogger's Last Blog -- by John Fabian

From Tower to Wharf to Bed

DECEMBER 25, 2014 ~ JOHN FABIAN

Auckland’s Sky Tower is a cross between the Seattle Space Needle and a Russian rocket ship. It is 1,050 feet high. It is part of a large downtown development with hotels and casinos. Of course for New Zealanders this isn’t enough. You must also jump off the damned thing or walk outside high above, along a narrow walkway, tethered of course. It does provide great views seen only before by people in flying machines, from which Kiwis also jump.

From the tower to the wharf is a short walk. Boats of all sizes bob in the water. Folks eat lunch at the surrounding cafes. Corporate bank offices display large sculptures. The tower can be seen from most angles. It’s a good reference for the sidewalk traveler.
After viewing boats I went into a downtown department store, the Warehouse (think Walmart on steroids). Some boys were playing delightful Christmas music on a guitar and stand-up base while staring intently at sheet music. Santa strolled around with good wishes and candy. It was 80 degrees and no air circulation. I became sick.
The pain was so bad I thought I might die. At first that frightened me. Then as it became more intense I felt there would be no more suffering and that buoyed me. The ironic situation, in its dull haze, confused and delighted me. Here in abject agony, possibly on the verge of death, I was balancing the event with the Dharma, the Buddha’s teaching. Who said the end of suffering was going to be easy? Breathe.I made it back to the hostel where I drank fluids and rested. I had pain in my chest and a very tight abdomen. About 10:30 at night I had a massive bowel movement. That changed things. I started to feel normal, but just.I canceled my meditation retreat. I’m resting. Merry Christmas. Ho Ho Ho

John Fabian, the author of the blog Mile Post 2.0 and AoteaoraDispatches, died 2 days later.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like...

I'm living inside a Christmas card. Snow lays on the bare branches of trees and cloaks all the evergreens in white. The temperature is just below freezing; cold enough to hold the snow but still feel pleasant. The foot of powdery snow on the ground is light enough to shovel--neither too wet nor too frozen nor too icy. It's beginning to look a lot like....

"Looking like" is not the actual thing. What we call love is usually attachment in disguise. Love expects nothing in return. Nothing. (If reading this sentence feels like "Ouch! That hurts." Then that's the feeling of attachment. Attachment hurts.)

Attachment wants something. There's a quid pro quo. I'll make you special if you make me special. The emotional state we call "true love" is usually true attachment or true lust. True love lets go. True love doesn't hold on.

Love looks like wide open space. And it's all around us.

Back and Forth

The other person in my house moved the winter flowerpot, with greens and a gazing globe, off the front step in December. He didn't want to shovel snow around it. So today, while he was taking the lights off the outdoor Christmas tree, i surreptitiously moved the greens + gazing globe flowerpot out of the garage and back onto the front step.

A month from now, i'll decorate the front step with pansies, but until then, a dash of green looks pretty good. Well, yes, snow is predicted for tomorrow, but shoveling the front step is my job, so i'm happy to have snow and a flowerpot.

The flowerpot stresses him; it doesn't stress me. Taking the lights off the outdoor Christmas tree stresses me (sigh!); but not him. He dislikes gazing globes; i enjoy them.

We could go back and forth all day, claiming our point of view is right, and his (or their) point of view is wrong. The mind seems to love this right/wrong, good/bad duality. And therein lies the source of our stress.

In truth, the Christmas lights have been taken down. I don't really need to have an opinion about it. My opinion = stress. I've moved the flowerpot to the front step, but tomorrow i may find it back in the garage again. Change happens. That is all.

Photo from greenlandgarden.com

Christmas Gifts

My Christmas cactus is actually blooming on Christmas day! And the amaryllis opened this morning. And i just found a bird-of-paradise!

Since my sweetie and i no longer exchange gifts, these blooming flowers feel like gifts to me.

Not giving gifts to my loved ones has greatly decreased my holiday stress. Imagine that! After all, a gift is really a way to say "I love you." And we can do that by sitting on the sofa together, looking at the Christmas tree, and all the blooms around it.

Try it now. Here's a guided meditation, called A Flower in Your Heart.
Practice the generosity of love right now.

Life and Loss

Susan's 92-year-old father died on Friday. He lived 3,000 miles away, and she had just seen him a few weeks ago. There are no plans for a funeral. I know, from experience, that this sort of private grief feels rather lonely.

I called the florist who was in a flurry with all her Christmas orders. Since i live in a small town, we know each other. "I can't promise delivery until the day after Christmas," she said.

"Maybe a plant," i said, thinking out loud. (I usually order cut flowers.)

"Oh, i have a white cyclamen," said Alva Jean, the florist. "Under the circumstances, i think it should go out today."

Susan emailed me 2 hours later, "These beautiful flowers will make my father's presence physical during the holiday festivities."

Loss and love and life happening at the same time, braiding through our holidays.

Photo from alpinegardensociety.net

Garden Statues in Winter

In this season of Christmas decorations, my sweetie and i have a difference of opinion about what should go at the front door.

He, a concert pianist, prefers the one he calls "young Beethoven" shivering by a little fire. I prefer my meditating frog, who looks like he's doing tumo--the heat-generating meditation done by Tibetan monks sitting naked in the snow.

Our compromise:

• Beethoven at the front door
• Froggie at guest cottage out the back door, where i can actually see him often :)

In this chilly season, what are your reminders of your best intentions?

This morning, i did a self-retreat and meditated for 5 hours in the guest cottage. Do you think Froggie had anything to do with it?

Christmas Wreath

While i was away from home yesterday, my sweetie took the Christmas wreath off the front door. He very kindly picked off the pine cones and shiny pink balls so that i can re-use them again in December. When i arrived home, the bare wreath was in the compost pile.

I know your eyebrows are raised or you're shaking your head. Well, duh.

But you'd be surprised how long we keep old, unskillful habits of mind (or just plain clutter around the house) with the rationale That's just who i am.

Peek under the corner of such a thought to find resistance to change. We like our particular brand of stress, maybe because it's so familiar--anxiety, complaining, irritation, unfairness, desire for beauty.

So keep your particular brand, even though it's outdated. Just watch the mind go around and around.
Then, one day, when you've had enough, it will just disappear.

Ivy Desire

Last week i couldn't resist buying a very cute Christmas ivy plant. The ivy twines around a circle of shiny balls and gifts. I rationalized that i would give the ivy as a present to someone, but now Christmas is over, and the ivy is still sitting on the window sill.

Maybe i am giving it as a present to myself?

Apparently 1/3 of our Christmas shopping is for ourselves. "I just want to treat myself," we say, as if we needed more treats. We know how we feel about the Halloween bag of treats: Too much sugar! Too many Christmas gift-treats leads us to the same slightly ill feeling when we review our credit card bill in the new year.

Desire is a strong feeling, and it clings like Velcro. Notice the ceasing of desire; notice how it slides away like Teflon. Desire ceases once we have the object of our desire in our grasp. Notice the end of desire. Notice the lack of desire a moment or a day or a week after you've made your purchase. Every desire ends.

Desire wraps its tendrils around us like ivy, and we feel powerless. Notice that.

About Time

It was about time, i suppose--i finally took the Christmas wreath off the front door. It was looking a little piqued now that warm weather has arrived. The green circle of living balsam lasted 4 months--from Christmas to Easter, from Hanukkah to Passover. There seems a certain poetic justice in that.

Yet it's just a story about time--as if time actually existed.

Time is just a way for the mind to compare past to present, past to future. In fact, past and future are mental constructions, with as much substance as a dream. The body, on the other hand, is always here now.

This gift of the present moment is the only place we can be.