Neighbor Possum

A possum lives under our front step. From there, it's a short trip to the grocery store, otherwise known as our compost pile. Once in a while, if we take the kitchen scraps out after dark, we can find her dining out.

My neighbors and i have decided we like possums because they eat ticks, mice, and rats. My neighbor who has a chicken coop feels lucky to have a possum living underneath the coop.

Mindfulness eats our pesky thoughts, simply by watching and feeling them. Here and gone. I don't have to believe that thought, after all. Sometimes, i watch the same thought come and go a dozen times. Why does the mind need to keep giving me the same message over and over? Because the mind isn't listening to the silence of truth.

The possum waddles off into the dark.

Season for the Squeezin'

Citrus season is here, as fresh oranges and grapefruit come to the supermarket, and fundraisers are offering boxes of citrus. Back in the day, an orange or a tangerine in your Christmas stocking was a great treat.

I pull the juicer out of deep storage and squeeze fresh orange juice for breakfast. Or how about freshly-squeezed grapefruit juice?

Although we can buy orange juice any day of the week, and although we can buy oranges and grapefruits every week at the grocery store, those fruits have probably been in storage. The season for fresh citrus is now through about April, when the juicer returns to deep storage.

It seems odd that the cold season in the North is the harvest season for citrus in the South. The end of life is the time when we harvest a lifetime's worth of learning.

A friend in California is dying just now. Her request was to be in solitude, to not be bothered by visitors. Her close family is close by as she silently harvests the lessons of this life, as she has one foot on the dock and one foot in the boat that will carry her away.

Nibbled Broccoli

Look closely to see the 3 nibbled-off stems

Since my vegetable garden is looking quite disreputable this summer, i bought a 6-pack of broccoli for 99 cents. I put it on my front step, and when i went to plant it 3 days later, 3 seedlings were nothing but stems.

Oh, those rascal chipmunks! They didn't even wait until i planted the broccoli. And really, why should they? It's so much handier to nibble them in the 6-pack. After all, we buy things in 6-packs at the grocery too.

Our good intentions to meditate every day get nibbled off by this to-do and that to-do.

If we are ever going to harvest the insights of our spiritual life, we have to plant ourselves on the cushion. Today.

Today i'm planting all those broccoli. Even the nibbled-off stems.

Eat Your Weeds

My friend, Trudy, age 88, recently self-published a book of her watercolor paintings of edible weeds. She offers wild weeds as a free source of organic vegetables. Her freezer is full of nettles, sorrel, and fiddlehead ferns. She digs up dandelion roots and keeps them in her refrigerator crisper drawer where they sprout green leaves all winter. Her kitchen is a veritable den of red clover blossoms, sumac staghorns, and who knows what else.

Nature can be our outdoor grocery store. Shall we eat healthy, natural food? Or shall we consume junk food?

What healthy "food" are your senses consuming these holiday days?

What "junk food" of TV, shopping, internet, etc. are your senses of sight, sounds, touches, smells, and tastes consuming?

Take a walk outdoors, perhaps a mindful walk. Look at the weeds alongside the road. Eat/see/feel your weeds.