Pink Thunbergia

Pink thunbergia is blooming in one of the front step flowerpots i brought indoors in October. Thunbergia is a vine, usually with a yellow flower. When i saw this pink flowered variety, i splurged.

Although the plant's name honors a Swedish scientist, we can think of it as honoring another Swede--Greta Thunberg, who, at the age of 15, became a world-known climate activist.

Due to climate catastrophe, hundreds of plant varieties are being lost forever every year. Hundreds of creatures go extinct every year.

Yes, change happens, but fatalism is not the answer. We do what we are moved to do. 15-year-old Greta was moved to call a school strike in Sweden. What are you moved to do?

Tri-Color Kalanchoe

My tri-color kalanchoe is blooming. It's an ornamental plant i put in my flowerpots at the front door in the summer, where it pokes along, but doesn't bloom. Until now, when snow is on the ground, and it's 12 degrees outdoors.

Somehow the conditions are right in my solarium with radiant heat in the floor. Passive solar gain through the big windows tends to bake the plants in the solarium.

What are the conditions that help meditation bloom in your life?

One friend is thinking it's time to get back into the meditation groove again, so she's taking a half-day Zoom retreat this weekend.

There are so many Zoom opportunities for meditating with a group or going on retreat--for 3 hours, for a day, or a week.

Let your meditation practice bloom with an additional sit. Your heart will feel warmer.

Welcome Friend

 
I stuffed a glass gazing globe with a string of white fairy lights and set it in a ceramic flowerpot beside the front door. The warm light is welcoming. I find i prefer the glow to the brightness of a porch light. Besides, who is coming to visit in the evenings? No one.

No one drops by for a visit after dark. My sweetie and i are seldom out after dark ourselves. We are tucked in to our warm home by sunset.

Still, the welcome mat is out. 

Can we put out the welcome mat in our hearts? Welcome each new person like a friend. Welcome each new event, whether or not it's what we want. Welcome Life as it flows through us. Welcome this moment, this hour, this day. Just as it is.

Vain Cowbird

A cowbird has taken up residence near our deck. He loves to sit on the back of a chair and gaze at himself in the window. When we moved the chairs away from the window, he scooted around to the front porch where i have a glass gazing globe, filled with fairy lights, in a ceramic flowerpot. He gazes at himself in the gazing globe. How appropriate! That bird loves gazing at himself. What a vain guy.

Looking at ourselves in a mirror is one way we affirm that, yes, we do exist. If we had no mirrors, we would have no proof that we are separate from the world we experience. 

The Buddha's most difficult teaching is not-self. The ego's mind cannot understand this, so we may as well stop trying. Once in a while, especially on retreat, a glimpse arises. It's surprising. But once you've seen it, you can't unsee it.

Meanwhile, the cowbird looks and looks and looks at himself.

Tulips in Flowerpots

In December, i planted tulip bulbs in flowerpots and set them in the garage. Now, they are six inches tall, so i'm bringing some inside to hurry up their blooms. The others are sitting in the waiting room of the front step.

Some of us bloom early, some late. Some of us zoom through school and hurry into adulthood. Some of us lag behind. Some careers take off, and some don't. Some bodies die faster than others.

Patience is the name of the game. Trust that Life (or whatever you may call it) is taking care of us.

Even the outdoor tulips will bloom eventually.

Ceramic Birdhouse

While i was at the hospice thrift store, i found a ceramic birdhouse. I bought it for $3. It's cute with painted flowers and butterflies. But ceramic?

For now, it's decorating my solarium. In the spring, i'll take it out to the front step with the flowerpots. I do wonder how it will look hanging from a tree.

The ceramic birdhouse has two drainage holes in the bottom. That's good. But how am i going to clean it out next fall?

The entrance hole is big, so maybe a mid-sized bird will make a home in it. Little birds would be at the mercy of big bird (or squirrel) intruders.

Some things look good, look beautiful, but turn out to be useless.

A lot of the things we decorate our lives with turn out to be clutter.

Maybe the ceramic birdhouse will turn out to be clutter too, and i'll clean it up and give it back to the hospice thrift store so they can sell it to someone else.

Growing Kale Indoors

Last summer, i put redbor kale in three of my flowerpots on the front step to add color and height. The pots--with the kale--came indoors in October. My kale plants are now 3 feet tall. I harvested the leaves for dinner tonight.

Kale is a cold weather crop, so it's still growing outdoors in the garden. And it's fun to have it growing indoors as well. One of the plants has baby kale sprouting all along its naked stem.

In the summer of our lives, what can we plant that will bear fruit (or vegetables) in the winter of our lives? Many people rely on family as their refuge. I remember my grandmother sitting in her recliner looking out her picture window and knitting slippers for her ten grandchildren. Nine out of ten of them lived hundreds of miles away as did two of her three daughters.

I rely on the Dharma for my refuge. Not matter the circumstances, no matter the internal "weather", the Dharma bears fruit.

Full Solarium

My solarium is packed full of all the flowerpots from the front step, the back step, and in front of the garage. Geraniums and petunias are blooming as is one agapanthus. I even have cherry tomatoes growing in one pot. Not sure how those got there.

Some annuals, such as coleus, are leggy and woody, and i don't expect them to last long. I take cuttings in order to root them.

As much as i like to keep old plants, some plants have a short lifespan. In order not to lose them completely, i keep taking cuttings.

Death is certain. The time of death is uncertain.

Red Malabar Spinach

In July, i bought Red Malabar Spinach to spruce up the flowerpots on my front step. Even though the name sounds like a vegetable, the plant looks very decorative--shiny green leaves on a red-stemmed vine with small white-pink flowers. Best of all, the spinach continues to grow happily during the hot days of summer since it comes from Malabar in the southwest coast of India.

My green, leafy vegetable is waiting for me every time i walk in the front door. Mindfulness is waiting for me every time i walk from the garage to the front step.

BEGONIA CUTTINGS

In the fall, I transplant some annuals into flowerpots. Begonias, polka-dot plant, and geraniums perform well in a sunny window, but by January, the begonias are tall and leggy and looking a bit ragged. So I cut them back, all the way back to the base of each stem, and put the cuttings in a glass of water, hoping they will root. Meanwhile, I have a "bouquet" of pink begonias on the windowsill in the kitchen to cheer me up while i'm washing dishes.

The potted begonia begins to look great a couple of weeks later with compact, shiny green foliage and lots of fresh pink flowers.

More is not always better. More of the begonia plant looks unruly. Sometimes we have to renounce desire, prune our cravings back in order that we ourselves become lush and blooming.

Burying the Sword

For Christmas, a friend gave me a bronze figure that she thought was a Buddha. Something she picked up at a yard sale. The figure holds his/her hands in the namaste position. When i looked closely, i could see that the figure is wearing a hood, which leads me to suspect that this is a Christian saint.

The saint figure is attached to a small scimitar-type blade that looks rather dangerous. Is this a letter opener?

Since the praying hands and the dangerous knife convey conflicting messages, i decided to bury the sword in a flowerpot. Now one of my houseplants has a praying saint of whatever denomination standing in it quite peaceably..

Can we bury the sword? Can we forgive? Forgiveness is an incredibly important practice. It can begin as easily as "I forgive myself for not understanding...." Just roll that around in your meditation for 10 and 20 minutes and see what comes up.

Relief!

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

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