Coltsfoot--Early, Early Sign of Spring

Coltsfoot is blooming in damp sunny places--one of the first flowers of spring. So named because the leaf supposedly is the shape (or size?) of a colt's foot.

Many people assume the bright yellow flowers on the side of the road are dandelions, but hold your horses. Yellow, yes. Dandelion, no.

We are often confused by look-alike emotions. One of my favorite targets is niceness. Niceness is not the same as goodness. Goodness comes from the heart. Niceness comes from wanting other people's approval.

Of course, we need other people's approval. We want to belong. We try to be nice to them.

Goodness doesn't really care if the other person likes us or not. We act wholesomely for our own benefit. We practice goodness simply because it feels good.

Coltsfoot is blooming in the ditch alongside the well-traveled road. Sometimes, we need to practice goodness even in the ditch of life.

Morning Glory Children

Morning glories are clambering over my arbor, their heart-shaped leaves a charming green background to the intense blue, pink, and purple flowers. Mixed in among them are a few Venice blue and Venice pink for contrast.

All these morning glories are volunteers, children of previous generations of morning glories. The line from a song in The Fantasticks goes,

"Plant a radish,

get a radish,

not a Brussel sprout."

In my garden, it's plant a morning glory one year; get dozens of morning glories next year.

We, too, have to plant and tend the qualities we want--kindness, patience, generosity, caring.

My cousin, Nadine, tries to be nice to me, even though i consistently annoy her. She's nice to me. Then something i do or say sets her off and breaks through her veneer of niceness. Maybe she thinks she's being nice by correcting me or by being critical? There. That should help me do it properly next time.

What if she practiced kindness instead of niceness?

We are not going to grow kindness by planting nice-ness. Maybe we won't grow too many friends by planting our opinions and critical comments either.

As one woman in the county jail said yesterday, "I can't slap every mouthy teenager. Otherwise, i'd be in jail for the rest of my life. Now I pause before reacting. The other women here on the block, even women who i didn't like at first, have started to like me."

Plant a pause before reacting. Pausing can be the first step to creating a beautiful mind.

Venice Pink & Venice Blue

The Organic Composting Handbook

My friend Dede Cummings has published The Organic Composting Handbook, filled with colorful photos.

I wrote the foreword and 32 sidebars, which i think you will get a kick out of.

It seems a bit early in the season to be thinking of compost piles. Two of my 3 compost piles are buried under 3 feet of snow. The pile that's in use has a fresh blanket of snow every few days. Maybe i could call it lasagna composting? A layer of kitchen scraps, then a layer of snow, etc.

This is the great thing about winter: last year's mess, last week's garbage, yesterday's scrappiness is buried under a fresh layer of snow.

We think our own ill-will, our own unskillful actions, our own scrappiness is buried by time. Yet that habit is still there, composting away under our pretty veneer of nice-ness.

We want to develop the habit of goodness in our actions. Nice-ness may look good on the outside, pretty as a fresh layer of snow, but it doesn't touch our heart. Nice-ness has our self-interest at heart--I want people to like me. It's not that i necessarily like them.

Of course, we feel ill-will at times, but we can compost it with a dose of loving-kindness--toward ourselves.

Black Plastic Pros & Cons

Carole laid down black plastic in her vegetable garden to absorb and increase the heat in the soil for her peppers and tomatoes as well as to suppress the weeds. Now, a tribe of voles has taken up residence under the black plastic, and are pruning every plant in sight. Not only the broccoli and the beans, but also the peppers, including the hot peppers. (I wonder if the leaves and stems are as hot as the peppers?)

 We too lay down various forms of weedy thought suppression: Oh, i shouldn't think that or Oh, i shouldn't feel that way or I don't want to feel this painful feeling.

We try to grow nice-ness as our cover crop. And what happens? When we're not looking, our best efforts are nibbled away, undermined by the very feeling/thought we are trying to suppress.

Mindfulness is our refuge. Lean into that unpleasant feeling as if it's an acupressure point. Make friends with that unpleasant thought/feeling.

That's the way to grow a garden. Pepper your life with mindfulness.

Forcing Hyacinths

I'm forcing hyacinths. The naked bulbs sit in their vases, suspended above water. They will sit there in the dark cool basement for 3 months or so before the flowers begin to sprout and unfurl.

In our lives, we sometimes force ourselves to be nice because we think that being nice is the same as being good.

But goodness is a skill that we can develop. The instructions are in the beginning lines of the Metta Sutta.

This is what is to be done
by one who is skilled in goodness,
and who seeks the path of peace.

Let them be able & upright,
straight-forward & gentle in speech,
humble & not conceited,
contented & easily satisfied,
unburdened by duties & frugal in their ways,
peaceful & calm & wise & skillful,
not proud & demanding in nature.

Let them not do the slightest thing
that the wise would later reprove.

Consider pondering one of these pairs of skills at the end of your meditation. A "nice" person might be gentle in speech, but not "straight-forward." How in the world can we do both? How can we say "No" (or even "No!") with an open heart?

Allow these phrases to grow in the dark of your sub-conscious. Some day you will be surprised by their blooming!