Red Ginger

Another ornamental plant here in the tropics is red ginger. Native to Malaysia, it is now found all over the world. It's a great cut flower, and is often found in Hawaiian flower arrangements. This plant does not provide an edible ginger root; it is simply a beautiful flower.

Buddhism used to be found only in Asia. It was introduced to the West in 1893 at the Parliament of World Religions. Now it can found, if not everywhere, almost everywhere.

Our Western culture has been transplanted in many places all over the world, many times to ill effect.

What is it that we want to to transplant? What do we want to ripple out from our lives? Stress? Or happiness?

It's your decision.

Tropical Plants in the Tropics

My sweetie and i are vacationing in Hawai'i for a week. Croton, ginger, and bird of paradise are growing right outside the door of the condo we are renting for a few days.

Oh, how i love to see these "houseplants" in their native setting. They look so happy and vigorous. I used to aspire to growing these tropical plants at home, but now the sight of tropical plants in the tropics is enough to make me want to stop growing these plants at home. Their cousins in the North Country--at least in my solarium--are pale and leggy by comparison.

We are at our best when we put ourselves in the proper environment to grow the beautiful qualities of mind we want to grow. Sometimes that means not listening to the news.

Or, if we decide to listen to the news, take it in teaspoonsful and antidote any negativity with 5 teaspoons of goodness.

This week, the good i am focusing on is being on vacation with my sweetie and luxuriating in the tropical foliage i love.

Parade of Wheelbarrows

My neighbor and morning meditation friend, Whit, turned 70 yesterday. Whit is not so fond of big parties or surprise parties. Nevertheless, his wife cooked up a surprise based on her gift to him of a new wheelbarrow.

Friends planting the Birthday Hillside

Last fall they had cleared a hillside at the back of their backyard. The hillside needed to be planted or else it would return to its native goldenrod-and-sumac-and-lots-of-weeds state. I loaded up my truck with various native groundcovers and met my neighbors with their wheelbarrows at the top of the path leading down the edge of the cleaned-up hillside. We filled each wheelbarrow with one kind of plant--a wheelbarrow of Canadian ginger, a wheelbarrow of Allegheny pachysandra, a wheelbarrow of Solomon's seal, a wheelbarrow of black cohosh (bugbane), a wheelbarrow of Jerusalem artichokes.

Neighbor Connie played Happy Birthday on her trumpet as we wheeled down the hillside into Whit's backyard. He was surprised, all right. Pleasantly surprised. And in half an hour, the 10 of us had planted the hillside in the drizzling rain.

Happy plants. Happy friends. Happy Birthday, dear Whit.
Happy. Happy. Happy.

Treating My Shoulder Gingerly

I strained my right shoulder, whether by shoveling snow or in my trapeze class or a combination of the two. I'm dropping out of trapeze class for the remainder of the semester, (Ouch!) but i did gingerly go to my Stretching 101 class at the circus school last night.

The physical therapist suggested i take ibuprofen, an anti-inflammatory, for a few days. But the circus pros each gave me a pep talk on the anti-inflammatory properties of ginger and turmeric. After class, i stopped at the food coop and bought ginger root, which i needed anyway, and ground turmeric, which i just ran out of. I also bought 2 small bottles of ginger juice.

As soon as i arrived home, i mixed up Ginger Cordial:
1 bottle of ginger juice
an equal amount of lemon juice
2 tablespoons of maple syrup (You can use honey.)


I poured myself a glass of fizzy water, and added enough Ginger Cordial to empower it. Oh, such an easy way to drink my ginger.

Our bodies are of the nature to become ill, or in my case, a bit disabled. I have no control over it. And it happens at an inconvenient time: two weeks before the end of the semester for trapeze class! And just as snow-shoveling season begins.

There's no need to feel incensed about the injustice of life. That just adds mental inflammation. Instead, act cordially toward illness or disability.

I'm going for another ginger cordial, right now.

Thai Mushroom Soup, Sort Of

I found galangal at the Food Coop! This Southeast Asian relative of ginger is a common ingredient in Thai cooking. My neighbor who lives in Bangkok sent me a simple recipe for mushroom soup. Now that i have galangal, i have to find substitutes for everything else.

Instead of lemongrass, i use lemon balm from my herb garden. Instead of shallots, i use onions. Instead of straw and oyster mushrooms, i use regular button mushrooms from the fridge. I use chicken broth instead of vegetable stock. There is no substitute for kaffir lime leaves, and i leave out the chiles.

This concoction probably would not pass the palate test of an authentic Thai, but i don't know any better, and the soup tastes delicious to me.

Some of us doctor our spiritual path. We follow our own hearts and minds. We adopt a philosophy that makes sense to us, and discard the teachings that we just can't believe. Pretty soon, we have a spiritual soup, which feels good and may even "taste" good.

But just how successful are we at doctoring ourselves? Is our doctored-up path going to take us where we, in our heart of hearts, want to go?

The Buddha offered a stiff prescription:

The diagnosis:                       
     Life includes stress and suffering.
                  (The First Ennobling Truth)
The etiology of the dis-ease:
     Craving.
                 (The Second Ennobling Truth)
The prognosis for our case:
     Cessation. Liberation is possible.
                 (The Third Ennobling Truth)
The remedy, the Rx:              
     The Noble 8-fold Path.
                 (The Fourth Ennobling Truth)

Shall we follow the Buddha's Rx? Or our own recipe?

Photo from shesimmers.com