Chinese Forget-Me-Not

Chinese forget-me-not (Cynoglossum) is the show-stopper of this late fall season. It's sky blue flowers grab the attention of visitors to my garden. "What's that?" they ask.

I pull up the dead ones and hand the entire plant to my visitor. "Here. You'll have it next year."

Each blue-blue flower turns into a tiny bur of a seed. I often find dozens of them sticking to my pants legs or gloves or shoes. This sort of sticky seed is called a hitchhiker because you can carry it for miles, unaware of your role in the dispersion of this plant.

The word "meme" originally meant a behavior or gesture or manner of speaking that is transmitted by repetition and replication (in a manner analogous to the biological transmission of genes), such as when you find yourself sounding like your mother or using your good friend's turn of phrase or gesture.

When we clean up our moral act, we can transmit kind and caring words and gestures. And isn't that what we truly want to do? Perhaps especially in our polarized society, where memes of meanness and even cruelty are too often perpetuated.

Forget me not mindfulness.

Fragrances--Sharp or Sweet

I'm "planting" paperwhites in shallow bowls filled with white rocks. I prefer the Tazetta variety (also called Chinese Sacred Lily) to the more common Ziva. Tazetta has a sweet tropical fragrance, but produces fewer blossoms.

So how do you decide which paperwhites to grow?
More flowers or fewer?
A "sharp" smell or a sweet smell?
Doing what everyone else does (Ziva) or something unusual (Tazetta)?

In our daily life, it's so easy to mimic what others are doing without really paying much attention. Think of how new words come into your vocabulary. But also gestures, attitudes, and opinions. Did you ever find yourself expressing an opinion you heard someone else say and then realizing that you don't really know if that IS your opinion?

A behavior that is replicated contagiously is called a meme (rhymes with "gene.")
What is the "fragrance" or "taste" of a contagious behavior? Sharp or sweet?

This is the reason that our spiritual friends are so important to us. We want to "catch" their behaviors of kindness and mindfulness. That's the meme we want to remember.