Speaking of Foxes

Yesterday morning the turkeys walked across our snow-covered lawn. This morning, a fox.

Seconds before, our deck had been full of squirrels scavenging for sunflower seeds. They disappeared. I walked into the kitchen just in time to shout "Fox!" to Bill at the kitchen table.

The fox was in no hurry, so i fumbled with my smartphone-camera and snapped a couple of photos before the fox disappeared into the shadows of the forest.

If we are foxy in our meditation, we can catch those dagnabbit distractions before they lead us into completely forgetting our meditation object.

One possibility is to open the lens of awareness wide. The squirrels who disappeared had wide-open awareness, which told them to skedaddle because danger was afoot.

With wide-open awareness, we can catch the distraction before it catches us. Otherwise, our mind goes trotting off into the woods.

Hyacinths Sprouting

The hyacinth bulbs i began forcing in December are sprouting green now down in my basement. I'm bringing them up to warmth and sun in the kitchen, one by one.

What's hibernating in the basement of your heart? Some delayed dream? A spiritual path that heads off in a direction you can't quite see? A desire for peace? A yearning to rest from restlessness? A hunger for happiness?

Sit. Only sit and wait.  Don't distract yourself with busy-ness. Your authentic self will bloom when it's ready.

photo by Nancy Riege

Squirting Squirrels

 I have a big squirt gun sitting in a quart of water right beside the door from the kitchen to the deck. When a squirrel sneaks up to the deck and starts munching the sunflower seeds sitting on the railing, i sneak over to the door and fill up the gun with water. I open the door as quietly as possible. Of course, the squirrel can hear me. Some squirrels are dare devils and wait until the last second before they take a flying leap off the second-story deck. Others skedaddle as soon as they hear the turn of the doorknob.

Sometimes, they take cover under the deck for a few seconds before they run across the yard toward the trees. I've learned to aim in front of where they are running because the water travels only a little faster than the squirrels.

I'm not sure i'm teaching the squirrels what i want them to learn. I want them to stay away from the bird seed, but that is like teaching starving people to stop stealing bread. The squirrels are hungry!

The squirrels have learned (1) to keep a lookout for me moving inside the house, (2) to run as soon as they see me. Some of the squirrels have even learned broken field running in order to avoid being "rained on" by the water from my squirt gun.

What have i learned? That the squirrels are hungry.

Floating Hope

This morning, i looked out the kitchen window and saw the word HOPE floating in the trees on the other side of the lawn.

Usually, hope is a desire for something different--wanting this moment to be different or wanting an outcome to be different. The Buddhist path cultivates the equanimity of accepting this moment just as it is. We may not like it. We may not like the news, for instance, but accepting what is, as it is, is clear-eyed seeing.

The Buddha teaches us about the path. Desire, wanting, craving are the sources of the problem. When we stop wanting, when we stop resisting this moment, as unpleasant as it may be, our minds and hearts come to rest.

Then we proceed with our heart leading the way.

Old Year, New Year

 "What the heck is this?" my sweetie asked. He was lying prone on the kitchen floor, peering under the refrigerator. "Give me something long."

I handed him some extra-long chopsticks.

"No, longer."

I handed him the fire poker from underneath the wood stove.

"It's brown. Ugh. What is this?" He held up a mummified pomegranate.

"Well, that's been there for at least a year," i said. "I only buy pomegranates for winter solstice, so...."

"A year? How about twenty?" he asked.

The old year dies today. All of us cheer "Hooray! Goodbye 2020. We are done with you. Goodbye. We can hardly wait to see the backside of this COVID year."

Another year of my life has gone. Everything i cherish will change and vanish. I cherish my life, and one year of it has vanished. I can see/feel the moments vanishing as i type these words. Each moment arising and passing, faster than i can say "pomegranate."

Frozen Parsley

Just before dark, i went out to the garden and picked all the parsley. At 23 degrees, it was frozen stiff, so it simply broke off, like green icicles, into my gloved hands. I laid it on the kitchen counter to thaw, and an hour later, it was fresh as a daisy. Or maybe i should say fresh as parsley?

What a recovery from life-threatening circumstances! 

One idea that threatens our life is the belief in death.

Look closely. Where is your 5-year-old self? Dead. All the cells in your body have likely been replaced since then. 

Where is your teenage body? Your young adult self?

Where is the last breath you breathed? Gone.

Where is your last heart beat? Gone.

Where is what you saw in the moment before the last eye blink? Gone.

Where is your last thought? Gone. Forever gone.

If every moment dies, and our bodies are dying in every moment, then what--really--is death?

The parsley lives.

Flowers Spell L-O-V-E

 

For my birthday, my sweetie brought home a beautiful bouquet of flowers. Such a delight to have fresh flowers on the kitchen table.

F-L-O-W-E-R-S spell love. So does T-A-K-I-N-G  M-E  O-U-T  T-O  D-I-N-N-E-R.

Love comes in many disguises. Some are sweet and feel good, like a hug. Some disguises are hard to swallow, such as tough love. And some disguises feel so entirely ordinary that you take them for granted--the air you breathe, the chair you are sitting on, the body that makes you think you are a self or have a self.

This self thinks she's a year older. A year older than what? 

The self is born anew every second.

Winterberry Feast

 

The winterberry shrub is becoming a bird and squirrel feast. Today several chickadees were eating the berries. Then a squirrel visited.

That wallflower of a shrub is the center of attention now that December has arrived. What fun to look out the kitchen window and see surprise visitors eating to their heart's content.

What contents our hearts? What contributes to our contentment?

Contentment is wishlessness--not wishing for anything different than what is. When we eat to our heart's content, we are satisfied. One definition of dukkha is dissatisfaction.

Look around you right now. What satisfies you? Our negativity bias wants to focus on dissatisfaction. 

Calm down and look at your environment right now. Temperature? How does sitting feel? Desire for food? In a lot of ways, my heart is already content. Simply notice that.

Native Sun Chokes

 It's time for Jerusalem artichokes, which are now marketed as "sun chokes." One friend says sun chokes are better than potatoes. Sun chokes are just a little bit sweet.

I like all the perennial vegetables (and fruits) that show up in my garden. I do hardly anything, and voila! There they are.

If i want to decolonize my diet, sun chokes are a good way to begin. They were grown by the indigenous peoples of North America. They are native to this continent. No fossil fuels were used in the transport of this vegetable. Just foot power. One foot for the spade to dig them up, and two feet to walk them from the garden to kitchen.

Delicious.

African Violets

My grandmother always had African violets sitting on her kitchen windowsills. I, however, could never keep African violets from dying. Until now.

18 months ago, my sweetie's ophthamologist gave him two African violets--one for each cataract surgery. I'm happy to report they are still alive! 

This past summer, a gardener who came to pick up some of my give-away perennials gifted me with an African violet she had started from a leaf. I love the ruffled pink flowers edged with white.

The gift economy is a lovely form of generosity in which each one of us gives a little something to a friend, a neighbor, or a client.

Maybe my African violets are surviving and thriving on the joy of giving.

Winter Berries

All summer i've been looking at a non-descript shrub outside my kitchen window. That shrub is spreading. What the heck is it? What was i thinking when i put it there?

Now that it's covered with red berries, i see that it is a holly called winterberry. The red berries are a pleasure to look at while i'm doing the dishes, and the berries will last 5 months, until the end of winter.

The shrub has teeny-weeny flowers in the spring, and the plain deciduous leaves have no fall color, but now winterberry is the star of the winter garden.

Meditation practice may look boring and dull in the summer of our lives, but it really bears fruit when we are reduced to the bare bones of life. 

Tulip Bouquet

When we returned home from our Caribbean vacation, we found a bouquet of tulips in the kitchen from our house-sitter. What a lovely and generous gift.

The house was warm and clean. Tulips on the table. Welcome home!

How would it feel to welcome every event? Welcome snow. Welcome slippery roads. Welcome seeing. Welcome hearing. Welcome feeling. Welcome thoughts.

Welcoming everything is another way to come home to our true self.

Japanese Maple

I am loving my Japanese maple trees right now for their brilliant red leaves, which really stand out against the bare branches of trees around them. The red leaved-tree is a focal point--a place where my eyes rest every time i look out the kitchen window.

In meditation, our focal point is often the breath or body sensations. Our focus aims to keep our mind tethered to the body. Since the body is always in the present moment, tethering the mind to the body puts the mind in the present moment also.

Garden Zen.
Red maple
Falling leaves.

From A to Z

I'm on a writing retreat the day after the first frost. Yesterday, the retreat manager cut all the blooming flowers and put them in the kitchen sink. She was going to put bouquets of ageratum and zinnias in each bedroom, but first she had to make 30 beds. Needless to say, the beds got made but the bouquets did not. So the flowers remain in the kitchen sink.

Ah, yes. We have too many things to do on our to-do list. One writer friend said she had planned to do four things yesterday, but only accomplished two.

So, there's the stress. The mind says one thing; the body says another. Which one are you going to believe?

The mind wants A through Z (ageratum through zinnia). The mind wants the whole kitchen sink. The body just can't do it.

The mind thinks it is the boss and has a conniption fit when the body-slave doesn't jump to its command.

Listen to the body. Slow down. Enjoy the zero stress of ageratum and zinnias just standing in the kitchen sink and looking beautiful.

Garden Apron

My sister gave me a gardening apron for Christmas. Made from re-purposed blue jeans (actually purple jeans! how perfect!) I love the colors. I love any form of re-use. And, of course, i love gardening. And now i will have enough pockets to stash things in.

An apron is supposed to keep our clothes clean while we are in the kitchen--or in the garden. How do we keep our minds clean? By spending some time each day focusing on positive qualities--kindness, patience, generosity, compassion.  Take your pick. Do it now. Clean up your act. You know what i'm talking about.