Gourmet Shrubs for the Deer

My neighbor, David, who cross-country skis our neighborhood's 90 acres, tells me that my yard has the most deer tracks. That's because i run a gourmet restaurant for the deer.

True, i call it a garden, but deer don't know the word "garden." They know food, even if they don't know the word for it.

The deer walk through the snow and sample my wide variety of shrubbery. In recent years, i've planted native shrubs, but the deer like some of those too. Hopefully, the natives are able to withstand the deer browsing their leaves and tips of their branches.

The PJM rhododendrons aren't native, but they can grow tall enough to have a tiara of flowers. The star magnolias have a narrow waist, which the deer have nibbled, and a buxom crown.

Thoughts nibble their way into our meditation. Thoughts nibble our peace and quiet. Thoughts are stressful. All thoughts are stressful--even pleasant thoughts.

Thinking of the deer could be stressful, but if i accept life as it is, then my mind is as cool as snow.

The Departing Garden

27 degrees this morning. This hard frost is the death knell for geraniums and chard. Petunias and parsley limp along. Broccoli, kale, and cabbage still live.

Halloween is the hallowed evening before All Saints Day (November 1), before the day of the dead, El dia de los muertos.

While Mexico celebrates with the departed spirits of dear ones and family members, i mourn the loss of my departing garden.

Walk to the Garden

I walk to the garden

To harvest vegetables.

I return with a full basket,

Empty-handed.

Energy Leaks

People look at my gardens and say, "Where do you get your energy?" I could say, "From the garden." But i could also say, "I've sealed off a bunch of energy leaks." I don't listen to the news. I spend fewer than 2 minutes a day on Facebook. I don't watch TV or videos. I also try not to think and overthink situations in my life. I don't worry. Etcetera.

My friend Evelyn, age 80, tells me that she's thinning out the stuff in her condo. "Every thing, every possession takes energy." O-o-h-h-h. Right. I have several piles of incomplete projects. I glance at each one and feel unpleasant and think Later. This goes on for months and years. My mending basket, for instance. Stacks of photos. Incomplete manuscripts.

Our energy leaks out of our lives, all over the place. Then we are too tired. Then we "don't have enough time" for meditation.

What's the most important thing in your life? What do you love the most? Wouldn't you really rather spend your energy there?

Since the Dharma is the most important thing to me, i had better tend to my Dharma garden.

Hammock Relaxation

I'm taking a nap in the hammock beside the garden every day. I'm usually a go-go-go gal, but, perhaps due to radiation, i feel more like a go....go.......rest gal. Many good ideas of things to do are not getting done, and it's quite interesting how easy it is to turn those good ideas loose as i float down the stream of Life this summer.

After all, a thought is just a thought. It comes; it goes. A thought has a shelf life of perhaps a second or two. Then it disappears.

The mind thinks a thought, but the body doesn't have to jump-to to obey the slave-driver mind.

The body can relax in the hammock. And really, the mind could use a dose of relaxation too.

Dry Gardens; Dry Meditation

Ordinarily i would have begun transplanting perennials and shrubs 3 weeks ago. Dividing bunches of phlox and mums in half and merrily moving short or tall plants to their proper class-photo place in a flower bed. But we are still in a drought here in New England.

I heard that a backhoe digging down 4 feet found only dryness. Dug wells, 10 or 12 feet deep, have dried up as the water table has sunk, and the people in those homes are having to buy water. Quite an unusual event for this green state i live in.

My sweetie beseeches me to water the gardens--a daunting task that makes me wish i had irrigation.

Sometimes our meditation practice feels dry. This is just when people give up meditating. Maybe they decide to try something juicier--psychic reading, enneagrams, astrology, jogging.

How to water a dry practice? Find something interesting, change your object of meditation, or change your meditation posture.

Make walking or standing meditation your main form. Or if you are daring, lying down meditation; do a body scan.

Change your object of meditation to hearing or to sensations. Or spend a year practicing loving-kindness. If you experience a dry spell, move to compassion. If that dries up, practice appreciative joy. Then equanimity. And start again.

Commit to a teacher and call or e-mail them once a month. If you can, sign up for a retreat, even if it's only a day-long or a weekend.

My mind is such that i find investigation very interesting. Take a high-lighted or underlined phrase from the spiritual book you are reading, and spend your entire meditation session contemplating that. Go ahead and turn it over in your mind, word by word, phrase by phrase.

Water your practice now. Trust me. You will see blooms by next summer.

The Fall-ing Garden

A misting rain this morning--perfect for our too-dry gardens that are limping into their old age of late summer. My body has the same sunburned, dried-out, curled-at-the edges look as the fading leaves of Solomon's seal.

The phlox and peegee hydrangea are just entering their heyday. The tall purple ironweed (Vernonia altissima) reigns supreme.

This is the time of year when many gardeners throw up their hands. "I've had it," they say. But some few of us are dedicated to enjoying the autumn of our lives. I've been cultivating a fall garden for some years, so for the next month, i'll have more and more blooms.

"Where do you get your energy?" my step-daughter recently asked.

Whether it's grandchildren, flowers, or life, i guess the answer is : Love.

This existence of ours is as transient as autumn clouds
To watch the birth and death of beings is like looking at the movements of a dance.
A lifetime is like a flash of lightning in the sky,
Rushing by, like a torrent down a steep mountain.

Buddha

The Phoe-Be Song

A phoebe wags its tail as it sits on the back of a lawn chair. This perch gives it a birds-eye view of insects flying around two feet above the yard. It zooms out, seems to snap at thin air, returns to the lawn chair, and swallows. Mosquitoes? Blackflies?

The phoebe never comes to the bird feeders. It builds its nest in an eave of the house (hopefully not near the bedroom window), and sings its raucous "phoe-be" song as if it has laryngitis.

Two chickadees have taken up residence in a bluebird house near the vegetable garden. They flit back and forth to the entrance, apparently feeding babies. Sometimes one of them sits on the wire fence and sings its melodic "phoeeeeee---beeeeeeee" song, dropping half a step between "phoeeee" and "beeeee."


Two birds singing a very similar song--one unpleasant, one very pleasant.
There's no need to wish the unpleasant away nor to desire more of the pleasant. Birds simply sing their songs, and mindfulness simply listens.

Parallel Play

My partner Bill and i go outdoors together and engage in parallel play. He does wood; i do dirt. He looks up to the trees around our house; i look down to flowers and weeds. Occastionally we call to each other, "Hey! I need a consultation over here." We enjoy the benefit of an extra pair of eyes and another mind with creative ideas.

In the evening, after dinner, we stroll through the gardens. He plans which branches to prune; i decide which plants to move. The effect is gracious as he subtracts trees at the edge of the woods, and i add flowering plants.

Ceasing and arising. Arising and ceasing. The garden is never the same garden at dawn as it is at dusk.

The Herb Garden

The herb garden has sprung back to life. I walk out the back door, and a pie chart of an herb garden stands at my feet.

Tonight i'm cooking spaghetti sauce. I cut 2-inch tall oregano, thyme, Egyptian onion tops, and garlic chives. So fresh that the bottled sauce revives itself into complicated flavors.

The apple mint is 2 inches tall. Well, that was yesterday. Maybe it's 3 inches tall today. It's sending out explorers to the nearby countries of Wormwood, Lovage, and Tansy. I ruthlessly pull those minty colonizers out by their roots in an effort to keep the exploding population within its own borders.

When i have a colander full of mint sprigs, i turn on the tea kettle. I stuff the rinsed mint leaves into a glass pitcher and fill to the brim with boiling water for a 2-day supply of iced tea. My honey calls it "iced mint water." By whatever name you call it, it's a cool drink for a warm day.

I love the herb garden, even though it is not showy. I've considered how i might age with my gardens. All the others may revert to woods or lawn or groundcover. The herb garden will be the last to go.

Garden Karma

In Native American traditions, March is sometimes called Starvation Moon. By this time of year, last summer's harvests are running low or have completely been devoured. Now, before the first green shoots and roots of spring, there is nothing to eat except the cambium layer of a few trees.

My own stores of last summer's harvest are thinning out. One pumpkin remains in the cellar. I still have about 3 dozen onions and a like number of garlic. The crisper drawer in the apartment-sized refrigerator in the basement is full of potatoes. But i only have one chili's worth of tomatillos left.

Let me sing the praises of tomatillos--green tomato-like fruits in a paper husk--that are used in in Mexican cooking. I picked them 7 months ago, and now they are ripe and ready for cooking. Not unlike the fruits of our karma that ripen sometime in the future--sometimes sooner, sometimes later.

"You reap what you sow" applies not only to the fruits of our labors, but to our thoughts and actions as well. Today, as we tend our inner and outer gardens, may we cultivate the seeds of kindness.

Tree Detritus

These early spring days--unseasonably warm--spring me from the house as if the March wind has unfurled a New Year's noisemaker.

What to do while the lawn is still soggy with snowmelt? I wrestle the garden cart out of the garden shed, where it's been stuffed all winter with other gardening paraphernalia. Of course, the cart's 2 bicycle tires on either side are nearly flat from the deflation of freezing cold. Pump them up, so that i can be the beast of burden and haul sticks to the brush pile.

Old Man Winter pruned more than the usual amount this year. Heavy pine boughs lie marooned at the edge of the driveway. Birch branches--both white and black--litter the lawn, the road, and my woodland walk.

In with the new season, out with the old exfoliated detritus of trees.

Robins Rejoice!

Robins are rejoicing this early morning, singing their "Cheer-up, Cheer-lee" ode to joy that bare ground has appeared. Let the worm feast begin!

We too can perch for a moment in a comfortable chair with a nice view, perhaps with a cup of tea in hand, and express our gratitude that we have lived to see another day. Daylight is steaming ahead full-throttle, warming our bodies so that jackets are superfluous.

We can count our blessings, not least of which is listening to the robins singing praises to spring.

Cold Feet

The snow on the septic tank melted today--a perfect rectangle of brown-green grass in an otherwise white yard of snow. In town, crocus and iris reticulata are already blooming, but my country-cousin climate lags a few days behind.

I've planted crocus on my septic tank in order to have some early blooms--a patch of yellow and purple in the center of the yard.

Noticing the particulars of the micro-climates in your own yard requires observation and a bit of curiosity. Those same skills are very helpful in developing a meditation practice. I doze off if i'm wearing socks when i sit. My personal climate does better when the body is cool. Cold feet can actually prevent my restless legs from twitching uncontrollably.

After all, if the crocus and snowdrops thrive with "cold feet," so can i.

Gardening in the Snow

My 84-year-old friend, Trudy Crites, tells me it's time to scatter poppy seeds. NOW. Now when my flower beds are covered with a foot of snow.

You know how you feel when you hear truth?

Something inside relaxes. Oh! Yes. The body relaxes; then the mind gets busy and tells you a story. The mind is so entertaining, and the story so believable (even if it's not true), that it's easy to miss that initial body response of calmness.

Regarding poppies, i have tried scattering the seeds in the cold mud of April--a month before the last frost date here in the north country. I've never quite been satisfied with the results.
In late autumn, i've seen teensy-weensy two-leaved poppies volunteering, so i know they like to get an early start. Really early.

I'm strapping on my snowshoes right now to go out to the garden and plant poppy seeds.

Localvore: Eating My Own Storehouse

Last summer i read Animal,Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. Although i didn't make a conscious decision to become a localvore, as she did for a year, i've been much better this winter at using local produce, beginning with the foodstuffs stored in my basement.

It's never difficult to use the onions and garlic. Any recipe that calls for 1 clove of garlic, i use one head, and i still don't work my way through my garlic supply by July. The onions last until April.

The potatoes require some effort because the weight-watcher who lives in my house complains about starch.

The pumpkins are starting to show their age; so it's time to have my own personal pumpkin festival. Just a few pots of green chili, and i could work my way through my extensive supply of tomatillos (and make a dent in the garlic too!)

Why is it so hard to open the freezer door downstairs?

This winter i have refrained from buying the cornucopia of local vegetables offered at my local food coop. I simply buy one thing at a time--for instance this week, 1 small head of cabbage.

This means that some evenings i have to open the freezer door and pull out a package of home-grown green beans, grated squash, or pesto. I expect i am going to achieve a long-sought-for goal: a nearly empty freezer by June.

All i had to do was apply a tiny bit of Renunciation (not buying fresh veggies) and Determination (to use the frozen organic veggies i grew myself). These 2 Perfections (paramis) are feeding my household perfectly well this winter.

January Thaw

The January thaw has arrived. Drip. Drip. Drip. The snow on the roof is melting and will soon avalanche off the north side of the house. The front walk puddles in between last night's crusts of ice. The glacial shield that has covered the driveway has begun to crack and fissure and run off.

Outdoors change is visible today. Snowmen are dying; snow forts have collapsed; ski trails are useless. The structures of the season--flakes, drifts, and banks--age and disappear.

The Perfect Microclimate that Fosters Blooming

My variegated Dracaena is blooming for the first time. A first-grade teacher gave it to me 7 years ago after i spent the school year as a volunteer in her classroom once a week helping children learn to read. That 5-inch plant is now 5 feet tall, so last summer i placed i beside my front door in the white garden. Its green-and-white leaves added interested to the shady and therefore mostly leafy flowerbed.

This particular plant seems to like to be wet, so i put it in a glazed flowerpot that had no hole in the bottom. Then it rained for 25 days in June and another 25 days in July. The flowerpot overflowed with water.

The Dracaena was so well camouflaged among the variegated Solomon's seal that i nearly forgot to bring it indoors. Then i "saw" it in early October and hurried it into the solarium. Now, for the first time in its life, it's blooming.

We all need the right conditions for our meditation practice to bloom. Some of us need to be inundated--perhaps by going on long retreats; some, like geraniums, need the soil to dry out in between waterings. I like to meditate in the wee hours of the morning; others prefer afternoons or evenings. I like study AND practice; others prefer mostly practice; and those with a sporadic practice obtain deep benefit from studying in a weekly class.

It takes time to discover our own perfect microclimate that fosters our own blooming.

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.

Cardinal in Snow

A crimson cardinal perches in a snow-covered apple tree, considering whether he will fly to the bird feeder. Chickadees flit from tree to feeder and back again; they are not shy. But the cardinal is a shelf feeder, and this bird feeder is for perching birds.

Nuthatches--which my partner calls upside-down birds--hop up or down a nearby wild cherry tree. Gravity doesn't seems to concern them.

The cardinal launches himself toward the house and grabs a bite to eat.

I smile. Winter bird-watching feeds my own joy.