Breakfast with a Heron

Our 3-star hotel sits in front of a marina, so last night and this morning, i took a beach chair out of the trunk, so i could sit and watch the water while i ate a warmed-over breakfast (last night's dinner). Just below me a heron waded in the water, as if she didn't even see me.

She was eating her breakfast too, poking her bill into the sand, grabbing something-or-other, and gulp-gulp, swallowing down her long throat.

Just think of all the emotions we swallow every day. We swallow our feelings because we are adults--we are not children who freely express every little emotional cloud that blows through their small bodies.

As adults we swallow our feelings, and there they lodge, stuck in the body. Sometimes, you can literally read another person's emotions by the (somatic) complaint/illness in their body. For instance, my sweetie's back used to go out every time i left home for a week. "You're mad at me," i would tell him. He denied it for several years until a male friend told him that a lot of lower back problems are caused by stuffed anger. That's when my sweetie looked inside and said, "Yes, i get mad at you when you abandon me for a week." After that, his back didn't go out again for 20 years.

Meditating on the Beach

This morning in Puerto Rico, i meditated on the beach, listening to the little waves breaking on the sandy shore.

Hearing. Hearing.
Also hearing some distant traffic noise.
Also hearing the constant ringing in my ears that i live with.
Hearing occasional bird calls. Doves. Mynah birds.

Everything in constant flux. No one thing staying the same for a second. The light moved gradually across the sand into full sun.

Water flowing, back and forth. Not unlike the tides of my own body with every pulse. I can't see the constant change inside the body. I see the outer "earth" element of the body, which like the sand appears stable.

And i am fooled into believing there is permanence.

Head in the Sand

After a month of retreat in the sunny South, i'm home. I've finally brought indoors pots of forced hyacinths, which are beginning to bloom.

One bulb in one pot of hyacinths had buried its head in the dirt and was growing into and under the soil. I pried its pale, pale green leaves out of the dirt this morning.

We too sometimes bury our heads in the sand. We don't want to look. We don't want to see. We don't want to acknowledge the truth of the present moment.

The Buddha recommends 5 Daily Reflections to help us work against this tendency to not want to acknowledge true life.

• I am of the nature to grow old. Aging is unavoidable.
• I am of the nature to become ill. Sickness is unavoidable.
• I am of the nature to die. Death is inevitable.
• Everything i cherish will change and vanish.
• Karma is the only thing i own.

Some of my friends turn up their noses at these seemingly unpleasant thoughts. But i'm trying to pry my own head out of the sand to see and acknowledge the beautiful life all around me.

Beach Erosion

  Just 2 blocks farther down the beach from where we are staying, the so-called beach turns into a jetty of giant-sized slabs of granite preceded by gigunda sandbags that are each a hundred feet long. A few of the ocean-front houses look precarious.

The ocean is washing the beach away--perhaps due, partially, to the lack of beach grass holding the little hillocks of dunes in place.

Change. Trying to stop the change of erosion with the change of sandbags and rocks.

We try to stop our own personal erosion by exercising and eating healthy foods. Still, the tide of life will have its way, no matter how we sandbag our minds with "not yet" or "not me."

The ocean is calm today. This beautiful sunny day.

Sunrise on the Beach

I took a walk on the beach this morning to see the sun rise. A new day begins. My footprints are erased by the next wave of the ocean.

Impermanence.

Walking Meditation on the Beach

Bill slipped while hiking in June and had emergency knee surgery. Last week, he gave his leg brace back to the orthopedic surgeon. Her prescription for him was to go walk on a beach. Walk barefoot in the sand.

So, we went to the New Hampshire beach, and then wandered down to the fishing village of Gloucester, Massachusetts. Walking to the beach there, i saw lots of Rosa rugosa, the rose that grows so prolifically in the sand. The red rosehips were ripe, so, as we walked, i picked the biggest, reddest ones and popped them in my mouth.

If rosehip tea is good for you, the actual rosehips must be even better, right?

The texture is a bit mushy, and there are a gazillion seeds, which i think of as intestinal brooms. But they are sweet, and loaded with Vitamin C.

Bill and i did our walking meditation on the beach, wonderfully barefoot in the sand.

Rooted in the Practice

My geranium cuttings have roots! After many years and many methods, i have found a rooting method that works. Last month, i put my geranium cuttings in a pint jar filled with a mixture of sand, vermiculite, and a little perlite. I poured in as much water as the jar would hold. That's it. No more water.

A month later, 95% of the cuttings have roots--a lot of roots. None have rotted.

In the past, i have tried Rootone, which is okay, but doesn't yield these kinds of roots. I have tried water; about half the cuttings rot. I have tried plain vermiculite. I have tried dirt.

I feel thrilled to have found a rooting method that really works.

Where do we root ourselves in our meditation practice? We try this teacher or that teacher, this method or that method. When we find a practice where we can root ourselves to the cushion and stay there for a chunk of time, then we know our practice will soon yield results. As Shinzen Young says, "The longer we practice, the deeper we practice."

Are you ready to add one minute to your time on this cushion this week? And don't leave mindfulness on the cushion behind you. Can you root yourself in mindfulness as you go about your day?

Rooted in mindfulness, we will be able to really see a beautiful blooming geranium.

When Life Feels Sandy

When my house was built, truckloads of gravelly sand were brought in to backfill around the foundation. Since the house was built on a slope, i have a daylight basement; the basement door opens next to a hill of sandy gravel that is well-shaded by the cantilevered solarium above.

For years i despaired over this sandpile that seemed to collect odds and ends and look generally disreputable. Then a few years ago, with a devil-may-care attitude, i planted a 6-pack of begonias there. They flourished! The next year i added impatiens and pink polka-dot plant. Now 2 varieties of bleeding hearts have volunteered to grow in this totally shaded, incorrigibly dry spot.

No matter how bleak our lives or meditation practice may look, a little creativity can suddenly create a spot of interest. This interested attitude creates in turn the energy for us to continue gardening--or continue meditating.