Excelsior

 A package came filled with excelsior a few years ago. What to do with excelsior? 

I tried to give it to the Swap Program at the landfill, thinking some craft person would know what to do with it. They rejected it. Last spring, i was desperate for mulch in my vegetable garden, so i took it out there, but never used it. Finally, i know what i'm going to do with it.

Store my turnips.

Turnips are supposed to be stored in a cool place, just above 32 degrees. My basement, at 55 degrees, is too warm. I'm packing my turnips in excelsior, and i'll store them in the garage. My garage is nine degrees warmer than outdoors, so the turnips should be okay until bitter cold arrives.

Excelsior means "very fine wood shavings," but it is also the motto of the state of New York, meaning "Ever upward."

How can we train our mental habits "ever upward"? How do we choose and take the high road?

One way is to practice the paramis--the paramount qualities of mind: Generosity. Integrity. Relinquishment. Wisdom. Energy. Patience. Truth. Resolve. Loving-Friendliness. Equanimity.

Excelsior! Let's live in accord with our highest intentions. Let's surround ourselves (and my turnips) with excelsior.

Sowing Alyssum

Today, i strolled along my walkways and garden steps, sowing tiny
alyssum seeds as i went.

Strewing the seeds is so much easier than any of the alternatives--buying the plants or growing the teeny-tiny plants myself. These seeds will be blooming by the second week of June.

Now is the time to plant the seeds of your intentions. One meditation teacher practices the paramis every day (generosity, integrity, renunciation, wisdom, energy, patience, truthfulness, resolve, loving-kindness, and equanimity). Whew! That's quite a list.

Another teacher friend focuses on the five precepts a.k.a integrity (do no harm, take nothing that is not freely given, speak truthfully and helpfully, use sexual energy wisely, and keep the mind clear from intoxicants).

Choose your own list--which might be just one quality. Loving-kindness is always a good place to start.

Sow that beautiful quality and watch it grow in your life.

Walla Walla Onions

I had a fantastic onion harvest in August.  My Walla Walla (Vidalia) onions were as big as softballs. No kidding!  But those big onion-ring type onions have a short shelf life. So I'm cooking up as many onion recipes as I can. Onion soup. Onion quiche with bacon bits. What's your favorite recipe that uses a lot of onions?

These big onions are surprisingly mild and sweet. We think of onions as causing us some distress, bringing tears to our eyes. But not these. People in Walla Walla eat these onions like apples. Crunch!

 Several things on our Buddhist path may initially make us put up our right hand like a stop sign. "No thanks. I don't want any of that."

For instance, the 5th precept of not taking intoxicants. Oh a little glass of wine never hurt anybody. Or the third perfection of renunciation. No thanks. I want more not less. Or the third characteristic of existence: Not-self. Of course i have a self! Or the 5 daily reflections on aging, illness, and death, followed by impermanence and karma. Really, do we have to talk about those? What a bore.

Yet when we bite into any one of these teachings, we find our life becomes sweeter.

So send me your onion recipes Sweetie.

Spring Cleaning the Flower Bed

There's a plant sale fundraiser in every little town around here this coming Saturday morning of Memorial Day weekend. I'm busy dividing plants and potting them up, using the rich-looking soil from a compost bin.

Offering plants for the Garden Club plant sale is a great excuse to do some "spring cleaning" in my flowerbeds. A month ago, the plants looked small and well-spaced. Now they're buxom and crowding their neighbors like a metropolitan subway at rush hour.

Generosity is the first of the supreme qualities (paramis); renunciation (disguised as "spring cleaning") is the 3rd. By virtue of taking on this exercise, this intention, i also practice energy (#5) and determination (#8). And underlying all this digging, dividing, and driving the plants to the sale is a mild flavor of loving-kindness (#9). I love my flowers, i love my garden, and i love sharing it with others, one plant at a time.

Repairing the Garden Hoses

I spent 2 hours repairing hoses yesterday. Rarely do i experience such a combination of patience, diligence, and determination on the task at hand.

On the way home from giving a Dharma talk, i stopped at our fabulous hometown hardware store and bought 3 new female ends for hoses that i had already cut the worn, hole-y, or squirting ends off of. By using these lengths of old hose and not simply buying a brand-new hose, i was practicing the voluntary simplicity of "reduce, re-use, recycle." I had tried to recycle the hoses on Saturday at the Swap Shop at the landfill, but they didn't accept them. So now i am "re-using" them :) Sometimes i need just a short length of hose.

In this simple act of repairing hoses, i was practicing half (or more) of the 10 paramis (a.k.a. paramitas). These supreme qualities are the ones we need to perfect if we aspire to be a Bodhisattva or to live a life of service.

1. Generosity
2. Virtue, morality,integrity
3. Renunciation (voluntary simplicity)
4. Wisdom, insight
5. Energy, diligence, vigour, effort
6. Patience, tolerance, forbearance, acceptance, endurance
7. Truthfulness, honesty
8. Determination, resolution
9. Loving-kindness
10. Equanimity, serenity

 

“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.”

Spring Cleaning

It's time for spring cleaning of garden paraphernalia.

I bought these great ideas, but due to some glitch, they don't work. I don't throw them away because:
#1.  i can't believe i spent that much money on something that doesn't work
#2.  maybe, if i sit down some year, i can repair it.

• The mister for hummingbirds attaches to the bird bath. It worked the first year, but then the 1/8 inch tube for water for the mister got holes in it. (from gnawing raccoons?)
• The battery-operating bird feeder that begins spinning when it senses the weight of a squirrel and flings the squirrel off. (Don't i wish!) A raccoon overloaded its battery power the very first night. Now it's stuck. I spent $50 to have a bird feeder cluttering up my garage.

It's time to renounce bad ideas and desires that lead to suffering (see #1 and #2 above).

Spring cleaning--a great time to practice the third supreme quality of a Bodhisattva and simplify our life.

Photo from hanover.wbu.com

Hibernating at Home

Due to snow, all schools and events have been cancelled for the past 2 days. Even though i have a 4-wheel drive truck (for hauling gardening stuff, of course!) and have been able to drive wherever i needed, i have mostly opted to hibernate at home. It's rather nice to pretend i am snowbound and take the opportunity to renounce the world.

Today i wanted to go to a Garden Writers meeting in Boston, but i heard the streets of Boston are flooded (and freezing into ice rinks) due to frozen drains to the storm sewers. I decided to stay home rather than go skating in my car along with a city's worth of other skating cars.

Renunciation is one of the 10 perfections (paramis or paramitas)--supreme qualities that we practice. After all, practice makes perfect(ion).

But renunciation is SO counter-cultural, just the word "renunciation" is enough to make someone scrunch up their face, wrinkle their nose, and go "Ooooh. I don't think i want any of that." (Thereby renouncing renunciation!)

I love these snow days because they give me an excuse to renounce the world, to hibernate with the Dharma, to meditate and to read, to prune my activities way back, so that in the spring, i can spring into action.