Pepe Le Pew

Skunks are mating. I can smell that spring is near because the scent of skunk is in the air. It's an unmistakable nighttime fragrance. The unpleasant olfactory sensation (skunk!) becomes a pleasant mental sensation (i.e., thought = almost spring!).

If you don't want to be skunked by your distracted mind during meditation, set your intention before you begin to meditate. Then, be diligent. Diligence requires effort. Keep applying effort, gently but firmly.

I use the Dismissing Technique: Thank you (thought) for coming. I don't need you right now. You can go now. Often, i say this repeatedly during meditation.

Otherwise the mind runs off over hill and dale, and you will be skunked in your effort to find a moment of calm.

Scared Katydid

I brought a basil plant indoors to make pesto, and a katydid hopped on to the counter. I managed to capture her, and she wandered around my arm for a minute, but the whole encounter obviously scared the s**t out of her.

Fear is running rampant in our society right now. The question is: Am I going to pick it up? Or am I going to leave it right there--in the TV, on the radio, in the newspaper? I don't have to take it on board.

Yes, it seems like fear arrives in the mind in the middle of the night. That's one reason i have a policy: No mention of politics and no news after sunset. I know what exacerbates fear in the middle of the night--too much news, which gives rise to a feeling of powerlessness.

The katydid hopped off my arm and onto the deck. Enable your mind to hop off of fear.

Tulip Bulbs in the Dark

Post-Thanksgiving, tulip bulbs are on sale, 50% off. I buy 50 bulbs, pot them up into 10 flowerpots, and next week do the same thing. My garage has 4 rows of pots sitting on the floor between the car and the truck, waiting for spring equinox when they can come out of hiding.

The tulip bulbs are buried in the darkness of the soil. December 7 is the earliest sunset of the year, at 4:16 p.m. Oh, the night seems long when darkness begins in late afternoon.

It's time for us to gestate, meditate, contemplate the dark. We can't see clearly in the dark, but we can feel. Feel the closeness, the surround, perhaps the coolness. Float in the dark of not-knowing, trusting that eventually the light returns.

Petunia Night Sky

I fell in love with Petunia Night Sky as soon as i saw it in someone else's wagon at the nursery. Even though a single plant cost $5.95, i plopped one in my wagon too.

I lead a loving-kindness meditation called Breath In Peace and Breath Out Love. The initial instruction is "Breathe in peace from wherever you think peace resides: a still mountain lake, a meadow filled with wild flowers, the trees in the forest, or the night sky with the moon and the stars."

I imagine peace in the night sky. Breathing in peace, i breathe out love. Petunia Night Sky reminds me.

Sweet Nicotiana

When i walked out the front door to empty the compost last night, i was enveloped in the sweet fragrance of nicotiana (flowering tobacco). I have a white garden, a moon garden, at my front door--all white flowers that are visible even without the moon tonight.

The flowers look scraggly during the day, but at night they shine, as they pump out their scent.

I, too, look a bit scraggly by daylight, but, as they say, you can't judge a book by its cover. Ayya Khema, a Buddhist nun, warns us not to project a self onto others.

It has taken me years to understand what she means. Since we have a self (or so we think), we project one onto everyone we see. But this is not necessarily true.

The person who is self-less may not be visible to our ordinary eyes, but we might recognize her by the sweet fragrance of her actions.

7 Night-Blooming Cereus

7 night-blooming cereus flowered last evening. So spectacular i don't even have words for it. I looked. And looked again. Beauty is so pleasant to look at. Then my eye drifts to another beauty.

I compare them. This one is a tiny bit more...., but that one is a tiny bit more in a different way.

My eyes drift away. I talk to my partner. I look back at the stunningly beautiful blossoms. I can't hold it.

Finally, i go to bed. I can no longer see them, except in my memory, which is not nearly so vivid as the real thing. My memory turns into a story about the purity of the beautiful flowers.

You can only take so much beauty before you become satiated. Enough. Beauty loses its oomph.

Until next year.

Life is Short

My night-blooming cereus bloomed last night. Its petals started popping apart at dusk, and by dark it was fully open and pumping its fragrance into the room.

I was awake at 2 a.m. and it was starting to look tired. By daylight, it had become a corpse. Life is short for night-blooming cereus--a single night.

Life is short for us human folk as well.

So you should view this fleeting world
As a star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.

                                                                     --Diamond Sutra

Deceased Cereus