Tick Season Has Arrived

The nymph on the right is about as big as a period. Period.

I hate to mention it, but it's above 28 degrees outdoors. The snow is still on the ground, and the temperatures in recent days have reached a high of 50. So pleasant.

Now for the bad news: Tick season has begun. Yes, ticks like it cool. They creep into action at around 28 degrees.

It's easy to think that snow = cold = ticks are still asleep. But the snow is no protection. The snow lulls us into a false sense of security.

It's time to spray all my clothes with permethrin. Or send them off and let Insect Shield do it for $8 a piece.

We protect our bodies. How do we protect our minds?

Protect your mind by practicing loving-kindness. You don't have to start with loving-kindness toward ticks. Start with someone easy--such as your dog or cat. Protect them from ticks, and thereby protect them from smuggling ticks into your house. Protect yourself and love your pet.

Bandana Protection

It's hunting season here in the north woods. Time to wear bright orange or dayglo yellow when i go for a walk. Neighbors tie red bandanas around the necks of their dogs.

The subject is deer. Those sweet Bambis who graze in our yards. Deer are so over-populated (30 per square mile instead of the optimum 18) that they are desperate for food. Our rhododendrons and other shrubs suffer. My star magnolia has a "waist" at deer nose height where all the buds and branches have been nibbled.

Deer also carry deer ticks, which in turn are carriers of Lyme disease.

We want to protect ourselves and our loved ones when we are walking in the woods. This wish can be incorporated into our loving-kindness phrases: May i be safe and protected. May i be safe from inner and out danger.

Loving-kindness is our antidote to fear. Fear of hunters, fear of ticks, fear of our own minds.

Perfect

I'm in Portland, Oregon, visiting friends. Every morning, Mary Beth walks her dogs in her neighborhood. One home has a perfect front lawn with flowerbeds of orange marigolds and red begonias and accents of blue lobelia and blue salvia. Spectacular!

My friend says the flowerbeds have the same design every year. It obviously works.

Some people strive for perfect flower beds or perfect bodies or perfect clothes. "Perfect" comes and goes, just like everything else in this material world.

What if everything is perfect--just as it is? Tangled, cluttered, weedy. (I'm thinking of my vegetable garden, which is "weedy" with volunteer flowers.) This beautiful life we are living is just-so.

Perfect.

Borrowed Landscape

I’m visiting my brother in Indiana. Behind his backyard is a pasture with four riding horses, one pony, and one donkey. Watching the animals is a never-ending entertainment. Although my brother fantasizes about having a mini-farm here in the suburbs, I advise him to feel content with the borrowed landscape of his backyard—all the joy and none of the labor of that heavily padded man who is pushing a wheelbarrow of manure from one barn to another in this sub-zero weather.

We don’t actually need to own everything ourselves. There’s a lot to be said for living in community where you can freely borrow from your neighbors. My stepdaughter borrows her neighbor's dog, who spends more time across the street at her house than the dog spends in its own home.

Sharing--whatever we may have--dogs, food, landscape, or garden produce is a form of generosity. The neighboring riding stable shares their pastures and the animals without even trying. We are all interconnected.

A Dog Who Loves Flowers

Luke
a poem by Mary Oliver


I had a dog
who loved flowers.
Briskly she went
through the fields,

yet paused
for the honeysuckle
or the rose,
her dark head

and her wet nose
touching
the face
of every one

with its petals
of silk
with its fragrance
rising

into the air
where the bees,
their bodies
heavy with pollen

hovered -
and easily
she adored
every blossom

not in the serious
careful way
that we choose
this blossom or that blossom

the way we praise or don't praise -
the way we love
or don't love -
but the way

we long to be -
that happy
in the heaven of earth -
that wild, that loving.

Fox Tracks in the Snow

Walking down the lightly-snowed road to morning meditation group at my neighbor's house this morning, i followed fox tracks. First she walked on one side of the road, then the other, then she switched again. She veered off into another neighbor's driveway. But a few hundred feet later, as i turned right, here came another straight line of fox tracks up the road, which also turned into the meditation neighbor's long driveway. These tracks veered off into the woods, making a beeline for my neighbor's compost.

When i returned home after meditation, i followed "my" fox tracks directly to my compost pile, where it suddenly looked like a fox trot party had happened last night. Broccoli stems and carrot peelings, onion skins and a coffee filter inside the compost bin didn't look that appetizing to me. I wonder what the fox was after? It did not look like the fox had jumped into the pile as a large dog will sometimes do. I remain puzzled as to what they are eating, although i can understand that the foxes are cold and hungry at this time of year.

What are we hungry for? And how far will we travel to find it?

When the ordinary food of our busy daily lives no longer sustains our heart, what kind of soul food can we find? And where can we find it?

I am fed by the teachings of the Buddha. And you? What is your "soul" food?