Composting with Bears

Wednesday's bear got into my neighbors' compost. Diana had put out some burned granola on Tuesday, and when she looked the next day, the granola was gone, and everything in the black plastic composter had been mixed up. How's that for "turning" your compost? Have the bear do it for you!

Isn't this just what our minds do? Our minds are burning about someone or other. We try to set that infuriating issue/person aside. We want to throw our problem away like we throw away our trash. But the mind revisits that bear-of-a-problem when we don't have our defenses up. Like not having the lid on the black plastic composter. The bear revisits our mind and jumbles everything up.

If we are truly going to compost our grudge or our garbage, we have to practice a lot of patience. We have to treat ourselves (and the other person) with kindness.

Compost from the Curbside

I went to the landfill to pick up a truckload of compost.

Where does all that curbside compost / garbage go anyway? Into a big pile at the landfill where it cooks at a hot temperature. Then they pour it through a giant sifter, and it becomes fine and crumbly.

For $30, my truck was filled with 1100 pounds of beautiful, brown compost. Maybe that's a problem with those truck scales at the entrance to the landfill--they tell you more than you really wanted to know.

1100 pounds sounds like a daunting amount to be wheelbarrowing to the side garden.  Yet, wheelbarrow load by wheelbarrow load, my truck was finally emptied.

11 minutes of meditation can sound like a daunting amount to a person just beginning meditation. Yet, even 11 minutes yields results. Day after day of a consistent 11-minute practice adds up to steadiness and persistence. After all those repetitions, you might decide to add another minute or two.

Whether you are meditating or pushing a wheelbarrow or being mindful while pushing a wheelbarrow, you are building strength of mind.

Wasted Food

I have this thing about wasting food. I don't like to do it. I'm the person who takes home a doggy bag even though i don't have a dog.

I am a member of the clean plate club, even though most professional women i know order salad at a restaurant and then send half of it back to the kitchen. I used to think of this as wasting food.

Then i saw that all food is "wasted." It goes into our bodies and comes out as waste. The leftovers that don't go through our bodies are also waste--going directly to the compost or garbage disposal or landfill.

Anyway you cut it, food become waste. That's just the nature of it.