Light Shining Through My Arborvitae

The deer are nibbling my arborvitae, as i suspected they would. I've seen rows of tall arborvitae shaped like popsicles with a long bare stick at the bottom, up to the height of a deer nose. Mine is looking rather threadbare at the bottom and is surrounded by deer tracks in the snow.

Its neighbors are surviving because they are still bedecked with Christmas lights. I suppose a string of lights doesn't taste as good as the fresh green of arborvitae.

No matter how threadbare we feel, after life has nibbled on us here and there, we can let our heart light shine.

I'm going to put some strings of lights on this arborvitae to see if that will save it from popsicle fate.

 

Frozen Parsley

Just before dark, i went out to the garden and picked all the parsley. At 23 degrees, it was frozen stiff, so it simply broke off, like green icicles, into my gloved hands. I laid it on the kitchen counter to thaw, and an hour later, it was fresh as a daisy. Or maybe i should say fresh as parsley?

What a recovery from life-threatening circumstances! 

One idea that threatens our life is the belief in death.

Look closely. Where is your 5-year-old self? Dead. All the cells in your body have likely been replaced since then. 

Where is your teenage body? Your young adult self?

Where is the last breath you breathed? Gone.

Where is your last heart beat? Gone.

Where is what you saw in the moment before the last eye blink? Gone.

Where is your last thought? Gone. Forever gone.

If every moment dies, and our bodies are dying in every moment, then what--really--is death?

The parsley lives.

Flowers Spell L-O-V-E

 

For my birthday, my sweetie brought home a beautiful bouquet of flowers. Such a delight to have fresh flowers on the kitchen table.

F-L-O-W-E-R-S spell love. So does T-A-K-I-N-G  M-E  O-U-T  T-O  D-I-N-N-E-R.

Love comes in many disguises. Some are sweet and feel good, like a hug. Some disguises are hard to swallow, such as tough love. And some disguises feel so entirely ordinary that you take them for granted--the air you breathe, the chair you are sitting on, the body that makes you think you are a self or have a self.

This self thinks she's a year older. A year older than what? 

The self is born anew every second.

More Beans

My pole beans kept producing beans into October, right up to the first frost. I was astounded.

My sweetie groaned. "Not more beans!"

I felt delighted. "Yes! More beans."

Our freezer is already full of green beans.

"But look at those big beans," he said.

"Yes!" I said. "Just look."

I grew up on overcooked green beans. My sister calls them hundred-hour beans. With shreds of ham from a ham hock, and a lot of onions, the beans are more like a stew than a fresh vegetable. Tasty (according to me).

This little civil war in the kitchen continues. Yes. No. I want. I don't want.

Fortunately, we remain civil and kind to each other.

9 Feet of Fern Root

Hay-scented ferns are so pretty, and they smell so fresh and green. They also take over and form a monoculture. I was cleaning up a woodland flowerbed, and there, of course, were hay-scented ferns. One i ripped out had 9 feet of rhizome/root growing just under the surface.

Wow! Did that feel good to deport that fern!

Sometimes, one of our bad habits can start to take up a lot of room in our lives. Social media springs to mind. Drugs. Shopping. The internet.

It's time to uproot those bad habits. Now.

When Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche was asked, "So what's reborn?" he replied, "Our bad habits." He should know. He was an alcoholic who died way too young. And he did like young women too.

I don't really want to live with my bad habits any longer than i have to. Now is the time to gently tug them out of the soil.