Sinking Snow

 

The snow on the septic tank is sinking like a grave because the heat of its contents--the effluent from toilets and sinks--heats up the ground. 

The Buddha enumerates the effluents (asavas) of our mind as

• sensual pleasures
• craving for existence and
• ignorance.

These effluents keep the wheel of samsara turning. The friction of samsara keeps dukkha heating up the world.

The best place to start is simply noticing, being mindful, of sensual pleasure. Notice when the self stakes its claim, but also notice when the self seems to drift away for a moment. Notice when you are on automatic pilot and ignor-ing the Buddha's teachings on ignor-ance.

Ever so slowly, you can cut down the effluents, and enjoy the calm and wisdom of self-less-ness.

Tri-Color Kalanchoe

My tri-color kalanchoe is blooming. It's an ornamental plant i put in my flowerpots at the front door in the summer, where it pokes along, but doesn't bloom. Until now, when snow is on the ground, and it's 12 degrees outdoors.

Somehow the conditions are right in my solarium with radiant heat in the floor. Passive solar gain through the big windows tends to bake the plants in the solarium.

What are the conditions that help meditation bloom in your life?

One friend is thinking it's time to get back into the meditation groove again, so she's taking a half-day Zoom retreat this weekend.

There are so many Zoom opportunities for meditating with a group or going on retreat--for 3 hours, for a day, or a week.

Let your meditation practice bloom with an additional sit. Your heart will feel warmer.

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.

Too Hot to Garden

With temperatures in the 90s this week, I go out to the garden as soon as i've finished my hour-long meditation from 6 to 7 a.m. I can garden for about an hour before the sun rises over the trees, and then, it's suddenly too hot to garden.

I look for shade and pull a few weeds, but i've lost my oomph.

At the end of life, the body loses its oomph, and it's too late to....  Too late to say that important something to that beloved person. Too late to do that special, unique thing you do. The body goes all out of whack--too hot, too cold, too heavy, too loose. Too late.

What's that one special thing that silently calls your name? Listen. Listen to the stillness.

Geranium-a-rama

Several years ago, when we were in Scotland, our B&B had a mix of lovely geraniums in mid-summer. I came home and ordered several varieties.

The blue variety reseeds itself freely, so i weed out several seedlings in the spring. The magenta variety is eye-popping. I also have white geranium and a variegated white-and-blue.

Geraniums provide a tapestry of color in these early summer days. What keeps us blooming when life heats up (or cools down)? What keeps us blooming when life dries up (or swamps us)?

Life is happening one moment at a time. Notice this simple fact.

Columns of Water

This weekend i visited a greenhouse that has plexiglass columns of water as its inside wall. During the day, the sun heats up the greenhouse, the tile floor, and the columns of water. During the night, the tile floor and the water columns release their accumulated heat back into the room full of houseplants.

These columns of water emit a translucence of light from the adjoining room.

We practice meditation and warm our heart with loving-kindness meditation that warms the people around us.

Be a beacon of light in these cold-hearted times. Warm yourself and others with kindness. Let your heart light shine.

The Negativity Bias of the Mind

Pam's question about the heat, humidity, and mosquitoes of September demonstrates an interesting fact about our minds.

Our minds are like Velcro for the negative and like Teflon for the positive.

Millennia of evolution have created our brains to be on the look-out for danger, so, of course, we are alert to heat, humidity, and mosquitoes. This is called the Negativity Bias. It enabled our cave woman ancestors to survive.

For some of us, a positive outlook goes against the grain. So it takes some mind-training to accent-u-ate the positive.

Begin by noticing the little good things--people, events, situations--in your life. These are probably very ordinary. Write down 3 gratitudes. Right now.

Today the purple asters are blooming.
The chickadees eat seeds out of Bill's hand.
We are going on vacation.

Feel into each one of gratitudes. Savor it. Soak into it in the body.
Smile.

Keep it up.
In time, this positivity and happiness will become natural. But in the meantime, fake it till you make it.

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

And now for one more angle on Pam's question about heat, humidity, and mosquitoes in the September garden, along with dire thoughts of climate change.

As Monty Python sang in "The Life of Brian,"
Always look on the bright side of life.

Cheer up, Brian. You know what they say.
Some things in life are bad,
They can really make you mad.
Other things just make you swear and curse.
When you're chewing on life's gristle,
Don't grumble, give a whistle!
And this'll help things turn out for the best
And 

Always look on the bright side of life!
Always look on the bright side of life.

If life seems jolly rotten,
There's something you've forgotten!
And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing,
When you're feeling in the dumps,
Don't be silly chumps,
Just purse your lips and whistle -- that's the thing!
 

And always look on the bright side of life
Come on!
Always look on the bright side of life
 

For life is quite absurd,
And death's the final word.
You must always face the curtain with a bow!
Forget about your sin -- give the audience a grin,
Enjoy it, it's the last chance anyhow!
So always look on the bright side of death!
Just before you draw your terminal breath.
Life's a piece of shit,
When you look at it.
Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true,
You'll see it's all a show,
Keep 'em laughing as you go.
Just remember that the last laugh is on you!
 

And always look on the bright side of life

Always look on the bright side of life

Come on guys, cheer up

Always look on the bright side of life

Always look on the bright side of life

Worse things happen at sea you know

Always look on the bright side of life

I mean, what have you got to lose?
you know, you come from nothing
you're going back to nothing
what have you lost? Nothing!

Always look on the bright side of life.

     Songwriter: Eric Idle

September is Gone

Pam Baxter, who writes a gardening column for the Delaware County Times in Pennsylvania, recently read my newest book Garden Wisdom 365 Days. She wondered what i would say about the September gardens and September gardening--heat, humidity, and mosquitoes.

The first thing i would say is "Gone." (Although i know that's not a very satisfactory answer.)

Look closely. This is an important lesson that's hard to see. September is gone. Heat is gone. Humidity is gone. Mosquitoes are gone. In fact, every moment of our lives is "gone." The only moment we have is this very moment. This moment of reading. This breath. This hearing. This feeling of or in your body.

Impermanence is the name of the game of life. It's an important insight to see that everything is passing away. This is not a morbid thought. Once you realize the sweetness of the present moment, this very moment, then life becomes very precious, indeed.

Shoveling Manure

Last week, it was "too cold" to garden (according to some), and this week, it is too hot--96 degrees. I really intended to be out in the garden from 6 a.m. to about 10 and then retire for the day, but i didn't have my logistics quite right. At 7:30 this morning, i picked up a truckload of manure. Since i needed the truck to carry a load of plants to the Perennial Swappers meeting at 6 p.m., i needed to unload the truck in the heat of the day.

We have our plans, and then they (or we) go astray. Life doesn't go the way we expect it will. Life doesn't go the way we want it to.

Can i accept life just as it is? Without complaint? Shoveling hot, steaming manure in the mid-day sun?

I could shovel the manure of the mind along with the manure in the truck. Or I could just shovel manure.

The Elements

I've returned home to the North Country, skin tanned by the west Texas sun, hair blown wild by the wind, and the body slightly dehydrated from the heat. The elements of heat and wind (air) showed their strength, but didn't arm-wrestle me to the rocky ground, though most plants looked parched. Surprisingly, standing in a 105 degree hot spring beside the Rio Grande on a 101 degree day felt really good on my bare feet..

Here in the North Country, the day is chilly, the sky is clouded, and mud and mud puddles are drying up. Green begins to twinkle in my brown gardens, inviting me outdoors.

Hot/cold, sun/clouds, heat/chill, wet/dry--our skin feels all of these. Some are pleasant; others unpleasant; and we react accordingly.

Really, the air is blowing through us. We breathe air, which is never ours anyway, and let it go when we exhale. We marinate in the temperature du jour--the sensations of our skin responding as it loses or gains heat continually. We drink water from the tap (from a well, from the city water tanks, which come from rivers and reservoirs). Our body feels solid, yet is ever-changing as water, heat, air, and solids enter, pass through the body, and exit via the trap doors at the base of the torso.

We ourselves are plain old elements, recombined.

Foggy Mornings

These autumn days dawn foggy as Mother Earth loses her heat to air. Last night i sat vigil for a 94-year-old woman who is losing her body heat. Her life energy is slowly leaking away, and she must have had plenty because she had 15 children, four of whom have died before her.

"Everything dies at last.
And too soon."

Summer dying into fall.

The Heat of Living Things

As the snow was melting, i watched patches of bare earth come to light. A circle of ground around a tree indicates to me that it's sugaring season--the sap is flowing in the maple trees.

But this year i noticed, bare spots around plants in the garden. Wow! Plants must exude some small amount of heat? I can imagine that they are "thirsty" when they wake up from their l-o-n-g winter's sleep, so melted snow would "taste" delicious.

Must be that mysterious "life force." We ourselves require "fire" (heat) to bind our own earth, water, and wind together. When the "fire" leaves, the other "elements" fall apart.

Now winter is falling apart as patches of snow melt into the earth.

Breaking the Heat Wave

Thunderstorms broke the heat wave last evening, and more thunder showers are predicted for today. Which means that today is a good day to transplant.

I have volunteers growing in all sorts of places i don't want them--cherry tomatoes in a little flower garden, and flowers in the vegetable garden. Today is the day for them to switch places.

In the summer of our lives, when we are busy with family, job, and paying the mortgage, it's hard to focus on our spiritual life. It's harder still to transplant meditation into our busy lives.

But sometimes, our lives don't play out "like they're supposed to." A thunderstorm rolls through our life, alerting us to the need to do something different.

Transplant mindfulness into your life today. Reading this blog mindfully, clicking the mouse mindfully,  touching the keyboard mindfully. Allow mindfulness to walk with you away from the computer and out to the garden. Transplant yourself into summer.

Thirst-Quenching Iced Mint Tea

Every evening, after dinner, while my sweetie is doing the dishes, i walk out the back door to the mint patch. Last year's construction (and 2 trenches through the former herb garden) gave the mint free rein, so the mint patch is now about 8 feet long and 6 feet wide. W-a-y too big.

I pull up 5 or 6 stems of mint by the roots, clip off the roots, and bring the mint indoors to make iced mint tea for the next day. This year i've been adding hibiscus flowers and a touch of maple syrup for a truly thirst-quenching cool drink on hot afternoons.

When we pull up the roots of stress (greed, aversion, and delusion), our craving (literally, "thirst" in Sanskrit) will be quenched.

We could look at our inner mint patch and sigh in despair. Or we could put ourselves on a daily diet of meditation and mindfulness (and mint tea :). Little by little, the inner heat cools to a refreshing causeless joy.

Photos from parkswholesaleseed.com and republicoftea.com

Transplanting Happiness

While i was at the meditation center last week, one of the staff, Kristy, dug up a patch of irises and daylilies and replanted them along a stone wall.  I stop gardening in July because it's too hot to transplant, but Kristy was undeterred by the heat.

I went in to the 7 p.m. meditation, and she was digging. 45 minutes later, when i walked out, she was watering the new bed heavily.

This is a great example of "beginner's mind." Kristy had intention; she applied effort; she got results. The expert (me) wouldn't have applied the effort, because the expert "knows too much."

Sometimes, we think that by transplanting the expert's knowledge/opinion into our own experience, we'll reduce our stress. That can be true.
But we might also reduce our happiness.

Kristy looked pretty happy about the new flower bed. And i've been waiting for years for someone to do something with that overgrown patch of daylilies and irises, so i was happy too :)

Heat Loss

The bare ground is freezing now. With no snow cover, the frost begins t sink into the earth. Water, though is still not frozen.

Heat recedes as the sun is veiled by a thin haze day after day. Nights are clear and crisp, the waning moon in sharp focus. Nighttime radiational cooling is not balanced by daytime radiatinal warming, so the cold is winning over heat loss.

Winter winds win. The body of earth gives up its heat. Do we think our own bodies are any different?

The Price of Progress

We are having a heat pump installed in our well in order to use the geothermal heat of the water to heat two rooms of our house. It's difficult to understand how 55-degree water is going to heat a room comfortably, but the electricity the heat pump uses will cost much less than the propane for the hot-water baseboard.

The price of progress? A 6-foot deep trench through my white garden beside the front door.

It didn't actually take long to dig out the important plants that were in the way, but deconstructing a garden does bring a level of stress, of anxiety about the future, and of wistfulness for the beautiful garden, now gone.

These revolutions also happen in our lives when children leave home, when we change jobs, or move homes. We assume the future will be brighter, and to that end, we willingly undergo the stresses of anxiety, of not-knowing, or of wistfulness.

The Elements of the Season

My rule-of-(green)-thumb is to plant and transplant in May and stop the first weekend in June when the weather becomes too warm and dry. Usually Mother Nature supplies enough rain--9 inches--in May that i can be casual about watering my dozens of transplants.

This year, however, May is a drought. The date of the last frost was May 8. Since then we've had a few sprinkles adding up to a mere 3 inches of rain for May. With a string of 90 degree days, this so-called spring feels more like summer. I find myself drawn to contemplate the elements: earth, water, air, and fire.

We could think of the elements as states of matter-solid, liquid, and gas, and the heat needed to transmute them from one state to another (ice to water to steam).

The heat of the season is driving water into haze. Morning dew evaporates into humidity.

It's time to water the dry earth in the gardens, and i fortunately have a well that delivers 12 gallons a minute.

Earth, water, air and summer--sounds like gardening to me.