The Hip Bone's Connected to the Leg Bone

My sweetie is wearing his los muertos shirt every evening that we go out to dinner in the ghost town of Terlingua, Texas. I like to point out the skeleton playing the (upright) piano on his shirt, since my sweetie is a concert pianist. His shirt also features a skeleton mariachi band, a male skeleton drinking beer, and a lady skeleton dancing.

"Seeing" the skeleton in yourself as well as in everyone else is one of the meditations on the body recommended by the Buddha. An easy form of the "32 Parts of the Body" meditation is to simply become aware of 3 of the parts--skin, flesh, and bones. Try it during your next meditation. Become aware of skin. Then imagine the flesh, muscle, tendons, ligaments, and fascia--perhaps rather quickly. Finally, become aware of the bones underneath the flesh. I do a quick scan from cranium down the neck bones to the shoulder bones all the way down to the toe bones.

When you stop to think about it, our skeleton might last a heck of a lot longer than our fleshly bodies. Let's stop taking it for granted, and simply notice that we are all walking-talking skeletons.

The Season of Darkness Begins

Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, is celebrated on November 1 (All Souls Day) and today (All Saints Day) in many Latin American countries. It's a day when families go to the cemetery and bring a picnic to party with their deceased relatives. It is believed that the souls of the dead pay a last visit to their loved ones at this time of year, before going underground.

As gardeners, we pay our respects to this season of decreasing daylight by planting bulbs in the darkness of earth. There they will grow roots invisibly all during the next several months. In 6 weeks, the Queen of the Underworld, Persephone, will reign at winter solstice. Then 6 weeks after that, on February 2, a little underground spirit in the form of a groundhog will peek out of the earth to check for signs of spring.

We, ourselves, may have mixed feelings as we enter this season of darkness.

Plant spring bulbs now. Not so much for hope, because hope engenders anticipatory waiting that is impatient with the "now." Rather we plant bulbs to help us notice that gestation takes place in the dark.

Is some aspect of our own lives entering gestation?