Skeleton in Bardo

That skeleton i bought at the hardware store for Halloween is still sitting on my front step. She's halfway between holidays, wearing a red scarf and surrounded by fall gourds.

The weather has not yet turned wintry. We are halfway between seasons--no longer fall, but not quite winter.

In Tibetan, the between place is called bardo. We can practice dying by being aware of the stages of falling asleep--that bardo of not awake but not quite asleep either.

The skeleton is in the bardo of between lives. The former fleshly life is gone. Who knows what happens next?

The November Garden

It snowed a couple of days ago, followed by a killing frost. All the annuals are good and dead now. And the fall garden is beautiful in stark relief: kale, broccoli, Swiss chard, and my lone cauliflower.

Gone is the "clutter" of the summer garden. Bean plants pulled up. Squash plants melted into mush. Tomatoes in the compost.

Summer is good and dead. How can something be "good" and "dead" at the same time? Is dead good? Well, yes. Sometimes.

The fall garden is good.

The summer garden is dead. Gone. Gone. Gone.

The Wind

 

Just before the rain, the wind  blows beautifully. A cool warm wind. I lie in the hammock and watch clouds skid across the sky. 

It's heaven out near the vegetable garden, surrounded by red- and yellow-leaved trees. I'm wearing long sleeves, but the temperature is just right. 

The wind blows the Cheryl-ness out of me until i can feel the clouds skating across the sky also skating through my chest. It's wonderfully wild in the great outdoors.

Pink Queen Anne's Lace

This year, several of the Queen Anne's Lace in my garden were pinkish-burgundy. Though i've never noticed this color before, they are really attractive and coordinate well with the magenta trim on my house. I hope they reseed themselves.

This COVID summer, i've seen many things in the natural world that i haven't noticed before. This slowed-down summer has created space for my inner naturalist to bloom.

This coming slowed-down fall and winter offer opportunities for at-home retreats. I'm signed up for a silent concentration retreat in mid-October.

On retreat, i will probably see things i hadn't noticed before. Those seeings are called insight. I practice insight meditation.

The pink Queen Anne's Lace is stunning.

Japanese Maple

I am loving my Japanese maple trees right now for their brilliant red leaves, which really stand out against the bare branches of trees around them. The red leaved-tree is a focal point--a place where my eyes rest every time i look out the kitchen window.

In meditation, our focal point is often the breath or body sensations. Our focus aims to keep our mind tethered to the body. Since the body is always in the present moment, tethering the mind to the body puts the mind in the present moment also.

Garden Zen.
Red maple
Falling leaves.

Fall Anemones

Fall anemones are still blooming in white or in pink. These tall, graceful flowers light up the fall garden.

Several years ago, i focused on buying fall-blooming plants, so nowadays, i have a blooming garden throughout September and into October.

In meditation, we set an intention at the beginning of our sitting practice. This morning my intentions were to name the hindrances and, especially, to be aware of the early warning signs of dullness (my most frequent hindrance). Bit by bit, our meditation comes into alignment with our intentions.

Plant by plant, our gardens come into alignment with our intentions.

Judgments

The difference between a weed and a flower is one of judgment. In the spring, i allow wild asters to grow in my flowerbeds because they add a white or lavender mist of color in the fall. When their flowers have finished blooming in October, i pull them out as if they are weeds.

What about those people we would like to pull out of our lives? Those weedy people whom we have a little grudge against, those weedy people who rub us the wrong way. It's all a matter of judgment--ours.

The fault lies not with "them," but within ourselves. Even then, we have already judged ourselves as having a fault, but since it's too ugly, we cast out our projection and land that fault on someone else.

The fall asters are not to blame. They are simply being their aster-ish selves.

Raining Yellow Leaves

A heavy rain last night rained yellow leaves off the maples, the birches, the hickory, the ash. The yellow leaves that were up above yesterday are now down below my feet.

The world is upside down. The sun sinks lower and faster. Fall is falling through my hands, into my lap, onto the ground. I can't catch or stop any of it.

Life flows through my fingers.

Alyssum & Nicotiana

Midway through October, the perennials have petered out, and the annuals rule. White clouds of alyssum puff along the sidewalks and patio. Nicotiana stars smell intoxicating at night. A little verbena here; a little silene there. Color!

Six months ago, i sprinkled alyssum seeds along the edges everywhere. One teeny tiny seed gives rise to a white cloud of joy.

Now in this closing-down season color and fragrance prevail. May it be so in the closing-down season of my life.

Yellow Leaves

Yellow leaves are falling, falling. A blizzard of golden leaves in the air. A carpet of sunny leaves on the ground.

Leaves that were once high up in the treetops, fluttering in the air now lie in stillness on the earth.

Fall. Falling. Change. Changing.

Fall Gardens

I celebrated the first day of fall by going on a local garden tour--a fundraiser for a little K-6 alternative school. What i saw were some of the most beautiful gardens in my town (population 2,000).

Just when it seemed like the gardening season was drawing to a close, i saw loads of blooming flowers.

So it is with aging. Just when it seems like an 80-something should be closing up shop, they're still vibrantly contributing to their local community.

A young relative once asked me, "What do you do anyway, now that you're retired?" Ha! There are lots of blooming flowers in this old gal yet.

Leaf Covered Path

I spent the weekend at Southern Dharma Retreat Center (SDRC), teaching at the Fall Clean Up Retreat. Eighteen people came from Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina to rake leaves and shovel rain-washed gravel out of the ditches and back onto the narrow mountain road leading to the retreat center.

Driving to the center, I crept my car along the leaf-covered one-lane road, which looked pretty similar to the nearby woods. Sometimes it's difficult to distinguish exactly where our path is. In the steep Blue Ridge Mountains, a wrong turn can head you terrifyingly downhill.

As meditators, we try to follow the Noble Eightfold Path, which at times may seem to have more folds than path. How do you respond with kindness in a difficult situation? Is your livelihood harmless? Is your (and my) retirement portfolio harmless? The path is not straight-forward, after all.

I arrived safely at SDRC. The Eightfold Path leads us to safety of a different sort--safety of heart and mind.

Golden Raindrops

Golden Raindrops Crabapple

Rain today. A gray day. An indoor day.

Garden maven Fritze sent me a photo of her community garden where she's planted several heirloom apple trees and some crabapples. Her Golden Raindrops Crabapple seems like just the right photo for today.

The leaves have dropped off the trees. Not much remains to do in the garden. The end of the season is coming, but that's no reason to feel crabby.

Rain. Relax.

The Fall Garden

The fall garden is the unsung season of gardening. So many edibles are still growing out there--kale, collards, mustards, lettuces, cabbage, and parsley. It's time to harvest some leeks and jerusalem artichokes. Apples are still hanging on my apple trees; let's make applesauce.

Every afternoon, i can walk outdoors and harvest enough for dinner. It may not be bountiful exactly, but isn't that a relief! There's just enough.

When we come to the downsizing phase of life, enough turns out to be plenty. The cornucopia garden is bountiful, indeed.

Star at Dawn

A hard frost came last Sunday and killed all the annuals. Sudden death. Suddenly the slow drift of seasons has become dramatic. Leaves falling, falling. Bare trees all around. A different season is definitely here, yet i am not resisting--at least, not yet.

I take joy in the yellow leaves still clinging to trees, the copper beach leaves. I delight in the blue of the sky, gaze at the last two stars twinkling brightly in the dawn.

Take 30 seconds and drink in some beauty right around you. Been there. Done that kills our joy. Let your joy shine like a star at dawn.

Yellow Leaves

Yellow leaves are falling like rain now that we've had our first frost. Or maybe i should say "falling like snow" since it also snowed immediately after the killing frost.

Old age dallied a long time, fooling us with a too-warm and lovely September. The killing frost came late--October 18--but it did come. Suddenly the gardens look dead, but they are quickly covered with a quilt of leaves--yellow, red, and brown.

Leaves falling. In our lives as well.

Magnificent Foliage

Fall foliage is spectacular this week. The tourists went home yesterday, and still the red maples shock the eyes.This year, the reds are redder than they've been in a long time. They say this year's magnificent colors are because the trees received more water early in the year.

Let's water our meditation practice while we may, so that when we come to the autumn of our lives, we too may be seen to be magnificent.

Perennial Ageratum

Several years ago, my cousin Jeana in Indiana gave me some perennial ageratum from her garden. They are about a foot tall, taller than the annual variety. And they are blooming now.

I have a fall garden, and these ageratums are a welcome addition of color in my flowerbeds. They perfectly match a short aster in one of bed, so i've put them close together. A yellow mum from last year actually survived! Luckily it is growing near another clump of ageratum. Nice color combination!

Today i am visiting a new hospice client because her usual volunteer is away for a couple of weeks. The hospice coordinator tells me this 92-year-old woman is taking her failing body in stride. A couple of months ago, she was found on the floor where she'd been for 28 hours. When asked why she didn't use the Lifeline hanging around her neck, she said that she didn't want to bother anyone.

A person like this, who doesn't complain, who appears calm despite her failing body, this is what i call blooming in the autumn of life. An ageratum in disguise.

The White Garden in November

The white garden at my front door looks especially lovely this November. White alyssum and several variegated white-and-green leaves help it retain a verdant look in this season of brown leaves and bare trees. This one little garden looks like it is still alive. Still living.

This early morning, it is extra white with a thin glaze of light frost.

In the white-haired stage of our lives, we too look lovely when life shines through us. Even if we do have a thin glaze of light frost on our body.

Alyssum Still Blooms

Alyssum is still blooming along the edges of several walkways. Despite the fact that it's November. Despite the fact that we have had hard frosts of 20 degrees. Despite the fact that it's dark out there. Alyssum is a real trooper.

In April i buy 3 or 5 big packets of alyssum seed. Then i walk along the paths through the gardens and sprinkle. By June, the seeded ones have caught up with the ones that came from 6-packs. And now, in November, when all the other annuals have given up the ghost, alyssum still blooms.

Alyssum soldiers on through the dark and difficult times, and emits a light, bouncy joy with its soft tiny white flowers. By this time of the year, it has spread into a little community.

A 75-year-old once said to me, "Aging feels like a battlefield. I look around at my fallen comrades. I don't understand why i'm still standing."

Alyssum still stands on the ground while the battle of aging, illness, and death goes on all around her.