Blue-Eyed Grass

On my walk this morning, i saw blue-eyed grass growing on the roadside. I love blue-eyed grass. Such a simple wildflower. A single blue flower on a single stem of grass. I've tried growing it and always lost it. Today i saw it in profusion--growing in sand (read: limestone) in Florida (read: hot). I don't have those conditions in my garden.

In meditation, i don't have the proper conditions for the meditative absorptions, which require deep concentration. To some people, deep concentration comes easily, naturally, even spontaneously.

I am content with what i have--good enough concentration and deep enough insights to understand. And if, once in a great while, a beautiful concentration arises, i am at peace with what is. No blue-eyed grass in my garden. Not much concentration in my meditation.

Vole Running Around the Bonfire

As the solstice bonfire leapt toward the sky and began to melt the snow in a three-foot ring around the fire, a vole started running around the fire. It surprised us, and i'm sure we surprised it. The fire surprised it. The heat surprised it. 

Voles don't hibernate. Come spring, we can see the tracks of their snow tunnels running this way and that in the brown grass.

I suppose the vole's snow tunnel suddenly melted. The vole was suddenly quite warm. People everywhere. Where to go? It finally took shelter in a small pile of kindling.

You've heard me talk about the voles eating my broccoli seedlings--all 36 of them. The voles take quite a toll on the spring garden. At the same time, mother voles are the most prolific of all rodents, having as many as 12 litters (= 100 babies) each year. Destruction and creation. Quite a keynote for these COVID times.

Where do we take shelter from the social change, change, change that surrounds us?

I take refuge in the Buddha.

I take refuge in the Dharma.

I take refuge in the Sangha.

A more enduring shelter than a pile of kindling.

Mulch Hay

Part of putting the garden to bed includes mulching the vegetable garden. First, the onion beds, then the winter squash bed, and finally the potato bed.

I call my local farmer, Bonnie, who knows how to load my pickup truck with 22 bales of hay. Right now, i ask her for only 10. The mulch hay i put on the garlic bed, the gladiola bed, the potato bed in the spring has become thin. The local turkeys are taking dust baths in the dirt there. I need a new thick layer to prevent grass from creeping in to the beds. By next spring, the hay will have dissolved into dirt. Oh, the soil in those beds is so deliciously dark and writhing with earthworms.

It's hard to believe, but taking a break from the world--meditating or going on retreat--can make us feel more alive. We mulch our world by muting all the incoming texts, phone calls, emails, and news. Stress dissolves. We begin to actually feel our bodies. Hey! I'm alive! Feel that.

These winter months of hibernation are a great time to retreat. I'm doing a 10-day silent retreat in October. How about you?

Turkeys Eating Ticks

 I opened my eyes during meditation this morning and saw 22 turkeys strolling across my lawn. Heads down, alert to their surroundings. They were all pecking at the grass--eating ticks, i assume.

Have you seen the movie My Life as a Turkey? A wildlife rehabilitator raises a clutch of motherless turkey eggs, and he himself sees much more life in the woods than usual because he is seeing as a turkey.

When we look closely at our own inner landscape, we see much more than we usually do. We might see the arising of a thought, the disappearance of a feeling. Last spring, i discovered the earliest warning sign of oncoming sleepiness--heaviness behind my forehead.

Knowing that the turkeys are cleaning my garden and woods of tick pests, i feel much safer.

Early Bird, Late Bird

A cardinal swoops onto the railing of the deck before the sun rises. He's the early bird, the earliest bird to come for a breakfast of sunflower hearts. Soon, chickadees and goldfinches swarm the railing, which we keep well supplied with sunflower hearts. The chickadees eat from our hands; the goldfinches fly off in a flock as soon as we open the deck door. The cardinal does a fly-by, but will not land if we are anywhere to be seen. Instead, he perches in a nearby apple tree, perhaps hiding from us, though we can see him perfectly well.

Cardinals are shelf-feeders, not perching feeders, so occasionally I see him coming in for a landing, but, changing course at the last moment, he continues on down to the ground below our second story deck, where cast-off seeds are hiding in the grass.

After sunset, as the bird chorus quiets into the dusk, the cardinal makes a final visit to eat whatever remains on the railing. Quiet, alone, not bothered by or competing with anyone else.

Snow While the Sun is Shining

Yesterday it snowed while the sun was shining. Small snowflakes danced in the air, and dusted the frozen grass.

Sometimes, a person is the picture of perfect health and received a surprising diagnosis. Suddenly, the end is within sight. The winter of life has begun, and the sun is still shining.

Still Lightning Bugs

A few lightning bugs are still lighting up the fields and forests these hot summer nights. The males fly around and look for the flightless females lying in the grass. The males drop down to mate, and then the female eats the male. Whoa! That is not a happy ending to the story. It turns out that sex (for the fireflies) is dukkha ("bummer!").

This reminds me of a chant.

Separation from the liked is dukkha.

Association with the disliked is dukkha.

Not attaining one's wishes is dukkha.

Well, we could apply all of these to our sexual relationship(s).
Separation from the beloved is (sometimes) distressing and creates a longing.
Association with the disliked (state of aloneness and yearning) creates a desire for change.
Not attaining one's wishes (i will leave the sexual details to your imagination) can create disappointment.

Those beautiful male lightning bugs light up the darkness

Photo from nytimes.com

Not Too Much Harvest This Year

by Guest Blogger, Laura Evans

Not too much harvest to worry about this year—alas. Something—maybe moles? Or voles?—found even onions tasty, munching on them from underneath. The onion would look nice and plump with its papery gold-brown top showing above ground, waiting for its stalks to flop over, indicating readiness for pulling. Then when you'd pull it, it would seem to fly out of the ground with no effort on your part, and you realized it was a trick: no roots and no onion left at all. As for other things, some never germinated or were devoured in infancy. Some seedlings were eaten early by rabbits, which we'd never had before in our 35 years of hillside gardening.

Birds, as always, loved the red “razzles,” but many got moldy before quite ripening. Chipmunks enjoyed the cherry tomatoes. I watched a squirrel delighting in our plump blackberries. The deer greatly appreciated our kale and the tops of tomato plants. Blight and tomato hornworms also joined in the tomato decimation. Weeks of rain were part of the picture too. So, we got little or no cukes, cabbage, broccoli, or squash (summer or winter).

Then there are (were) the apples. Doug comes in the door with deep red ones from the biggest tree—all five held easily in his cupped hands. I look up from chopping store-bought veggies as he announces, “Well, here's the Jonathan crop for this year.” He sets the gnarled knobby little things on the counter. Horrified at first, I grew fond of them over a few days, finding them humorous and cute—like the shrunken little old heads of apple dolls—no drying needed.

Last year, the apples did okay, and a year or two before that, even though we don't spray them, the branches were groaning under the weight of big flawless fruit. Pears too, that year; same thing. And peaches.

This year, the small seckel pears were plentiful and coming along until, after a few days away, we came back to find them just not there. Along with the hordes of squirrels, we think a gray fox participated in the feast. We saw it soon after, apparently looking through the grass below the tree for any it might have missed. (Unlike their red fox cousins, they can climb trees.) 

I love seckel pears best of all, but the glimpses of that gray fox almost made up for the losses.

Laura Evans is memoir writer and an early childhood educator who lives with her gardening husband in Vermont.

I'm Looking Over a 4-Leaf Clover

When i was a child, every Sunday afternoon, after Sunday dinner, my grandmother and i would walk around our house looking for 4-leaf clovers. I still have the knack of finding them. Today i put a flat down on the grass and voila! A 4-leaf clover was staring up at me.

Today is Wesak, the full moon that celebrates the Buddha's awakening. It's a good time to take refuge in the Buddha, take refuge in the Dharma, and take refuge in the Sangha.

According to the Dhammapada:
One who takes refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha, sees the Four Noble Truths:

1. Suffering, 
2. the Cause of Suffering, 
3. the Cessation of Suffering,
4. and the 8-fold Noble Path which leads to the Cessation of Suffering.

These are the 4 Truths that will bring us more "luck" than any 4-leaf clover.

Groundhog is the Grass

We looked out the kitchen window to see a cute roly-poly groundhog grazing on the grass just 10 feet away from the house. Eventually, we walked out on the deck, and the groundhog ran right into my flowerbed. Ahem.

Today, Bill and i went exploring in the flowerbed and found a big groundhog hole right in the middle. Fortunately, i had some used kitty litter, which i immediately dumped into the hole. Would you go home if used kitty litter was scattered all over your front step?

What do we do when varmints take up residence in our minds?

First of all, watch it with mindfulness, interest, and curiosity. Where does this "varmint" live?
Eventually, you can apply the antidote of kindness. This might be called "killing it with kindness." That's really the only way to invite it to live somewhere else.

Snow Mold from Old Snow

Snow Mold

When i went to my singing lesson yesterday, i had to keep clearing my throat. "Oh, yes," the voice teacher said, "singing unglues stuff you didn't even know you had in there. And at this time of year, the snow mold is really bad."

Snow mold? I am allergic to molds and mildews, but i never thought about being allergic to snow.

Snow mold on the lawn appears as the snow melts, which was happening earlier this week. Before it snowed again.

Gray snow mold grows on unfrozen ground, under the snow, and lies around on the cold and wet lawn until temperatures reach 45 degrees. Pink snow mold likes it warmer--32 to 60 degrees.

 Snow gets old and moldy, and so do we. Snow decays, and so do we. Snow mold is a fungus, and, at times, we too get fungal infections.

Look carefully at the receding snow. Snow mold is teaching us a lesson. Can we hear it?

The Wish to Be Generous by Wendell Berry

The Wish to Be Generous

All that I serve will die, all my delights,
the flesh kindled from my flesh, garden and field,
the silent lilies standing in the woods,
the woods, the hill, the whole earth, all
will burn in man's evil, or dwindle
in its own age. Let the world bring on me
the sleep of darkness without stars, so I may know
my little light taken from me into the seed
of the beginning and the end, so I may bow
to mystery, and take my stand on the earth
like a tree in a field, passing without haste
or regret toward what will be, my life
a patient willing descent into the grass.

--Wendell Berry.

The Grass is Greener....

"The grass is greener
where you water it."

Neuroscience says it this way:
Neurons that fire together, wire together.

We could call it "cause and effect." We could call it "habit." We could call it "in a rut."
Or we could call it "karma," because our present actions determine our future.

 What "grass" do you water? Anxiety? Worry? Judgment? Impatience? Irritation?

What "grass" would you like to water? Open-heartedness? Balance? Patience? Kindness?
Name one.

The first step in practicing the quality you want to be is simply to be mindful of that bothersome habit.
Label it out-loud every time you see it.
Call out its name as if you are seeing an old friend.
Repeat its name until it disappears. Until it slinks into hiding.
And you smile.

Baby Green Grass

Remember that 6-foot-deep trench that was dug through my white garden on October 19? Just beyond that garden the reseeded swath of lawn is now sprouting a peach fuzz of fine green grass. The baby grass loved the warmish weather that lasted through November. And now i have to trust that it will be warm enough this winter with its thin blanket of straw.

It's really quite amazing to watch impermanence in action. Lawn became a 6-foot-deep trench became squishy mud became reseeded with a layer of straw became fine green grass. Change happened dramatically and visually.

Our bodies, our senses, our feelings, and our minds change even faster, from second to second. Yet, last evening, when i had dinner with friends from Burma whom i had not seen in 5 years, the first thing we did was say, "You look the same. You haven't changed at all." But many changes have happened: a husband has died, a grandchild has been born.

Fine baby green grass grows on the grave of a loved one.