January Thaw

The entire month of January has been a January thaw--freezing at night and melting during the day. It's more like March weather when the freeze-thaw cycle starts sap running in the maple trees. 

How are the maple trees doing in this weather anyway? It's been nice for the two-leggeds to walk outdoors--with their grippers on their boots and walking sticks in their hands.

Ice. Water. Snow. Snow melting into water. Icicles. Water dripping.

Freeze. Thaw. Freeze. Thaw.

Change and more change. Including climate change.

Fish Under Ice

My fishpond freezes during the night and thaws on a sunny day. The goldfish are still swimming underneath the ice, though i'm not sure "swim" is the proper word. They move through the water. They are not hibernating, but they are logy. They are cold-blooded creatures in chilly water.

You know that cold reduces inflammation and swelling. Cold also increases metabolism, improves sleep, and improves your immune response. Some of my friends are practicing cold therapy--taking cold showers or other cold exposure. I'm walking around the house without slippers and even going barefoot outdoors for a few seconds at a time.

There most likely will come a time in our old, old age when cold overtakes us. Can i greet the big chill as an old, cold friend?

The goldfish will be in a torporous state until April when it's time to sow alyssum seeds (yesterday's post :).

November Chard

 "What about the chard?" my sweetie asks.

He loves Swiss chard, and he's worried that it will freeze.

"Chard is good all the way through November." I try to reassure him.

Worry is one of the hindrances to our meditation, and it's an obstacle in our daily life as well.

My sweetie worries about the chard. I cannot un-worry him with what i consider to be facts: The chard is edible in November, so eat up.

Worry, worry.

He has to calm himself. I cannot do it for him.

Frost Warning

It's supposed to freeze tonight, so i've spent the day harvesting the garden. I've picked all the green tomatoes and the green beans. I've also harvested calaloo.

Calaloo is a spinach-like green from Trinidad & Tobago. In July, a friend gave me a 6-pack, and now each plant is 5 feet tall. I chop the leaves and steam them for a few minutes before packing them into freezer bags. You know how greens cook down. I now have eight quart bags full.

When the first frost approaches our lives, what will we say that our lives cooked down to? All those years, and what does it add up to?

I recently heard a guided meditation on a near death experience. Here's the song that played in the background of the visualization.

Why have you come to earth? Do you remember?

Last Chance

Snow is coming tomorrow. Today is the last chance, THE LAST CHANCE to dig leeks or carrots out of the garden. The last chance to put away lawn chairs and garden ornaments. The last chance to get the wood in. The last chance to move things out of the way of the snowplow. The last chance to turn over buckets so water doesn't freeze inside and crack them.

We usually don't know when it's our last chance to say good-bye. Sometimes people slip away before we are ready.

This year's garden slips away tomorrow. Farewell, dear garden.

Unhook the Hose

It's time to unhook the hoses from their outdoor faucets before water freezes in the hose. One more garden chore for this change of season.

I recently filled out my Advance Directives. I said that i did not want feeding tubes because, as a medical professional pointed out, tubes in means tubes out. Think catheter, for instance. When my body slows down, i want to allow Nature to take its course. That's when it's time to unhook the tubes.

The hoses watered the garden in its prime, but now that the garden's old age is here, it's time to put the garden to bed and unhook the hoses.

Labeling

I am still harvesting green beans--a basketful every day. In the midst of all that greenery, some beans have escaped my notice and become big bean-y beans; others are young and tender. No matter. I blanch and freeze both. My sweetie insists on labeling the big beans so that when he takes a bag of beans out of the freezer, he'll know what he's getting.

Labeling our meditation object is a good practice to remind ourselves what we are doing in meditation. Hearing. Hearing. Or Feeling. Feeling. Or even Seeing. Seeing. Labeling is a big help in our mindfulness practice.

I'm wondering if i can be mindful enough to pick my pole beans every day.

Frozen in Place

The snow has melted, but the ground is frozen, so the outflow of my little fishpond has been caught in action--a scale of ice frozen on top of the lawn. I can follow the drainage course of the water all the way down the slight incline of the yard.

The outflows (asavas) are our predispositions, our mental defilements, which surreptiously keep the wheel of samsara, the wheel of suffering, spinning. The 3 outflows are sense desire, craving for existence, and ignorance. Huh?

It's hard to catch these rascals in action unless you're looking for them. This is what meditation can do: freeze those rascals in their tracks so that you can see tiny shreds of sense desire. You can see the particular ways in which you crave being. (Well, obviously, i don't want to die, for instance.) You can see how ignorance worms its way into ordinary, daily thoughts, words, and deeds.

And the wheel of samsara keeps spinning.

Undone Projects

It has snowed 3 times in the past week--all before Thanksgiving. I keep thinking, Oh, it will melt, but temperatures here are dropping into the teens. The ground will freeze, and that's the definite end of gardening season.

Oh, the projects left undone. Things not put away. Stalks and stems not cut down. Bulbs not planted. Sigh.

We thought we had a future, but the future turns out differently than we expected. The future was a figment of our imagination. And now we are disappointed that reality doesn't match imagination?

The future is always in the imagination. The future is only in the imagination.

We live and breathe in the present moment, and every new moment is a surprise.

No One Wants to be Old

Nobody wants to be called “old” or to think of themselves as old. All the alternative words have failed: elder, senior citizen, golden age, codger, geezer, etc. I do like “super senior” which the ticket seller at the movies called me last month, but I doubt that it will “sell.”

A fashion industry woman who specializes in clothes for older women (ahem) is using the word “perennials,” which is a word we gardeners can give a nod to. Perennials keep coming (except when they don’t).

If we experiment with the Buddha’s daily reflection on aging which typically says “I am of the nature to grow old. Aging is inevitable” could we say “I am of the nature to be a perennial”?

We gardeners know what that means: we keep coming back year after year, until one hard-freeze winter. And then we don't.

Flowering Kale

Our local farmstand closed the day before Thanksgiving, so i stopped and bought 4 flowering kale, on sale. I knew i was taking my chances because the season of hard freezes was (i thought) coming soon.

One month later, our El Nino warm winter has given us lovely temperate weather, so the flowering kale are still blooming on my front step. A tiny flower garden greets me every time i walk in the front door.

It's never too late to start meditating. One friend says she's given up on meditation; her daily practice is joy. Another friend, who meditates 20 minutes a day, says her practice is gratitude.

I feel grateful for these lovely flowering kale, which bring me a lot of joy.

Parnsip Patience

The ground is frozen. And frozen into it are leeks, parsnips, and jerusalem artichokes. Even my neighbor Connie, who has been known to take a hatchet to the dirt so she can pry up some roots for roasting, couldn't extract her leeks from the ground.

And so we wait. Patience my dear. The vegetables in in the deep freeze embrace of Mother Earth. They will still be there when the earth thaws--in January or next spring.

We put our wanting on hold and call it patience.

Reprieve

Still no frost. Frost is predicted every night this week, and still it doesn't freeze. Today feels like a reprieve from a death sentence. A rally during the death vigil. How much longer?

For death is coming to the garden. How could it not? Last evening, I made my last batch of basil pesto. The basil is gone. Well and truly gone.

But today, we have one more day, this day to enjoy the tender annuals. One more day to pick zinnia and dahlia bouquets. One more day to glean vegetables from the garden.

If you had one more day to live, how would you spend it? What would you do? How would you be?

That one day is today. This moment. Now.

Photos from williamsburgfloral.com and jackiejacobson.com