Baby Polka Dots

This morning i noticed tiny polka dot seedlings growing in the pots of various houseplants. Even though i shook the polka dot seed stems over some flowerpots a couple of months ago, i'm sure i didn't sprinkle any in the pots where they are showing up. Oh, the mystery of tiny seeds.

This is the reason we need to pay attention to our ethical conduct. Not because there is a divine judge. But because you are judging your own actions. 

The seeds of our speech, our actions, and our behavior fly off in who-knows-what direction. Will we harvest a weed from that mean word? We never know the repercussions of our words.

Plant seeds of kindness wherever you are. You may be surprised by little polka dots of happiness 

Blood Spatter

There's blood on the railing of the deck. Right where we scatter sunflower seeds for the birds. And the squirrels.

Is it a murder mystery? Blood spatter? Or is it the estrus cycle of the female gray squirrel?

Death? Or birth? (It's seems too early and way too cold to be thinking of little squirrel kittens.)

Just in case it's death, i pause for a moment at the sacrificial altar of the railing where we feed the birds. Such easy pickings for a predator.

It's easy to imagine an owl swooping down in the cold winter night.

Death is certain. The time of death is uncertain.

A Monarch in Ochre

An abundance of monarch butterflies flutter around the flower garden this late summer.

The Buddha was a monarch (the prince of a small kingdom) before he left home at age 29 and became an ascetic wearing ochre robes.

Though very few of us would choose such a lifestyle, we can simplify our lives, especially when we recognize the stresses--large and small--of our busy lives.

We too have the possibility of transforming our minds from caterpillars to butterflies, which do not even have the same DNA as their previous incarnation.

It's a mystery.