Drooping Daisies

 My birthday bouquet is impermanent. It's aging into pieces. 

The gerbera daisies drooped on the third day, as they do predictably. So i cut the stems short and floated the flowers in a bowl of water, where they seem to be happy. I am certainly happy looking at them.

Old daisies. Old me.

He Loves Me

Our front lawn is now a field of daisies. My sweetie has mowed them into creative shapes. This is the first year that he's allowed the wildflowers to stand. Last month, lavender fleabane bloomed in the lawn. Now the daisies. In the past, he has hated to mow the stiffer stalks of these flowers, but this year, he's enjoying them as much as i am.

When i was young, i plucked the petals off daisies. He loves me. He loves me not. Now there's a stressful thought: "He loves me not."

But i can see that my sweetie loves me whole-heartedly. I have a lawn full of daisies and thousands of daisy petals to show me.

Turkey in the Straw (sort of)

We looked out the kitchen window to our wildflower lawn of fleabane and daisies. A turkey sat in the middle, alone, just resting. It pecked at various things--ticks (i hope), flower seeds, and wild strawberries.

My mind races around trying to make up stories. Was she considering our lawn for a nest? (Nope. No egg. Besides, nesting begins in early May.) Was he a young male on his own?

Our minds make up stories about all kinds of things we don't really know. We have story-telling minds. Sometimes, we tell ourselves lies, and this causes so much stress and suffering.

Can i be content with simply watching the turkey resting on the lawn and then walking away?

Wildflower Lawn

Last month, i could have eaten my lawn--it was full of blooming strawberries, violets, and sheep sorrel. This month, my lawn is a wildflower garden. Not like the ones you shake out of can. My lawn is much too common for that. Right now, it's a haze of lavender fleabane. White oxeye daisies will bloom next. Then orange and yellow hawkweed.

My sweetie, The Mower of the Lawn, has been kind enough to leave this inadvertent wildflower garden, and we walk out every evening after dinner, just to gaze at the fleabane.

Fleabane lives up to its name--banishing fleas, but, more importantly nowadays, repelling ticks.

The Dharma helps us banish those pests of mental states that bug us. We substitute the opposite qualities: forgiving ourselves for not understanding life, practicing kindness toward ourselves and others.

The fleabane makes me smile and creates happiness.

Rain Garden

My favorite rain garden is the cloverleaf where i often enter onto the interstate. In the center of that single cloverleaf is a low spot, lower than the entrance ramp curving around it on 3 sides, and much lower than the traffic whizzing by on the interstate on the fourth "side." This drainage area is, right now, filled with blue lupines, happy daisies, and red clover (Vermont's state flower.)

When it rains, the water is held in this area, this "rain garden," so that stormwater runoff can percolate into the soil or slowly be released into the stream that drains this area.

This is what rain gardens do: they withstand the extremes of wetness and absorb the high nitrogen and phosphorous that is often found in runoff. A rain garden also guards against erosion that can be caused by a downpour.

How can we hold the challenges of our life when stress and distress rain down upon us? How can we hold difficult situations without resisting them?

Our mindfulness practice prepares us for the non-judgmental awareness to notice. "Oh, this." and "Just this." We don't have to have an opinion. We don't have to have a judgment. We don't have to launch into ain't-it-awful.

We simply hold the "too much" that may be storming through our lives. Let it infiltrate us. Feel the pain, the splats, and all the other unpleasantnesses. The mind wants so badly to make up a story about it. The story--whatever it is--guards us against feeling the present moment.

And after the storm, after all the thunder and lightning, the sun shines and daisies bloom.

Dyed Daisies

My sweetie bought me a bouquet of daisies at the supermarket. Daisies in my favorite pink and magenta colors. Dyed daisies.

"Dyed daisies?" he asked. "How do you know they're dyed?"

Well, first of all, their leaves are maroon. And secondly, the water in the vase is now pink as the color slowly leaches out of the stems.

He felt cheated. I still love looking at this ever-so-vibrant bouquet.

We expect our flowers to be natural, to have the au naturel look, so, naturally (ahem), my sweetie feels cheated when he finds out the flowers have been "made up" to look more beautiful.

I'm very fortunate that he likes my au naturel looks, because my beauty leached away some years ago.

Good looks leach away from all of us. When we're young, we're cute or maybe beautiful. Some people's good looks stick longer than others. One thing for sure. We will all wind up just like the daisies. Beautiful today. Faded tomorrow. And then after that, out to the compost pile.

Meanwhile, i can appreciate the pleasure i receive from looking at them. And i can bask in the thoughtfulness and love of my sweetie.