Pleasant Fades

The holiday centerpiece that i made 4 weeks ago at Garden Club is starting to look a bit stale. It's still green, but.... What? I'm tired of it? It looks like Christmas, and Christmas is gone?

The 3 carnations "passed" a couple of weeks ago and were carried out to the compost pile. The baby's breath has dried out, and their color has shifted from white to off-white, but they're still okay as a dried flower.

In the cleaning up of holiday decorations, the centerpiece has gone outdoors, to live next to the ornamental flowerpot of greens and a gazing globe. The centerpiece is a bit small for the job, but adequate for this supporting role of greenery.

And so life goes. From pleasant to neutral to unpleasant and back again. First, the centerpiece was pleasant. Then i stopped seeing it as it faded to neutral. Then i began "seeing" it again, only now it looked slightly unpleasant. Untimely. Unfresh.

Pleasant--we want it.
Unpleasant--we don't want it.

Are we at the mercy of pleasant and unpleasant?
Grasping every pretty, pleasant thing.
Pushing away every unsightly, unpleasant thing.

As if we could arrive at a place where everything is pleasant.
But even the pleasant fades to neutral, as we tire of it.

Mullein: Weed or Flower?

Some years ago, i noticed white mullein growing by the roadside near a defunct wildflower nursery. "An escapee," i thought. I gathered some seeds and sowed them in my nursery bed.

Mullein is a weed that often stands sentinel along the side of the road. Growing a single stalk 5 to 8 feet tall, it has a few small non-descript yellow flowers scattered over its fuzzy gray-green height.

White-flowered mullein is unusual; this is how a weed becomes a wildflower. When it blooms in early July, the stalk is covered with joyful 2-inch wide white flowers.

Now i have dozens of these mullein volunteering in my sunny beds. It's fascinating to notice over the years how some plants, which you might not necessarily choose, choose you. They like the soil, the sun, the microclimate--something.

We define our "self" by our likes and dislikes. Then something we don't feel any particular affinity for "likes" us. Hmmm. Do we like it (or them) back? Or do we ignore it (or them)?

This is a great opportunity to investigate pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral.
Notice how something pleasant becomes neutral after a few moments.
Notice how something neutral might become pleasant. (Or perhaps unpleasant?)
Notice how something unpleasant becomes neutral if you keep your attention on it long enough instead of just reacting with "Ee-yoo."

Notice how that "weed" in your garden becomes beautiful once you notice its good qualities.