Winter Wonderland

It's a winter wonderland here today. Big fat snowflakes falling. Pine trees bowing under the weight of the snow. All is still.

"Hear rest" is one of my favorite meditations. It's like listening to the sound of silence.

Pay attention to your throat. Relax your throat and keep it relaxed. Notice that every time a thought crosses your mind, you experience a sub-vocalization and your throat tenses up a little bit.

Relax your throat. Relax into stillness.

Neighbor Possum

A possum lives under our front step. From there, it's a short trip to the grocery store, otherwise known as our compost pile. Once in a while, if we take the kitchen scraps out after dark, we can find her dining out.

My neighbors and i have decided we like possums because they eat ticks, mice, and rats. My neighbor who has a chicken coop feels lucky to have a possum living underneath the coop.

Mindfulness eats our pesky thoughts, simply by watching and feeling them. Here and gone. I don't have to believe that thought, after all. Sometimes, i watch the same thought come and go a dozen times. Why does the mind need to keep giving me the same message over and over? Because the mind isn't listening to the silence of truth.

The possum waddles off into the dark.

Fortifying the Mind

 I fortified my unfenced winter squash bed early on because, last year, someone nibbled my squash plants to death. Maybe it was deer. But I suspect turkeys were the main culprits. A bed full of dirt looked like an enticing dust bath to them.

This spring, i staked out the squash bed and then ran string between the stakes until it looked like a cat's cradle. For extra protection, i added tomato cages all along the sides so deer would be deterred from sticking their noses through the tangle of string.

During these COVID times, we are setting up our own fortifying protections--some more than others. Masks, gloves, hand sanitizer. Some protections have been rescinded: i can now use my own bags at the food coop.

I'm already looking forward to my 10-day silent retreat in October--with the side benefit of missing out on 10 days of pre-election news. I'm protecting my mind from various news pests.

I have a bumper crop of winter squash setting butternuts, pumpkins, and Long Island Cheese (whatever that turns out to be). Ten days of silence will yield a beautiful harvest of calm.

The Meditative Gardener is On Retreat

I'm on self-retreat, here at home until January 13.

During these next 2 weeks, you'll be reading "re-runs" from 2010. Wow! Have i been writing this blog that long?

While i enjoy the silence of cyber-space, you will continue to receive reminders of mindfulness. Enjoy!

Groundhog Day

Groundhog Day! Candlemas. Or in the Gaelic tradition, Imbolc (meaning "in the belly" = the pregnancy of ewes with those little lambs-to-be). However you think of today, the sun is halfway between winter solstice and spring equinox. Already the increase of light feels substantial. We have one hour more daylight than we did 6 weeks ago.

The spirits that returned to earth on November 1 (All Souls Day, also called Dia de los Muertos) and were deep underground on December 21 (Persephone, Queen of the Underworld) are supposedly peeking up today to see if it's safe. Is spring here yet? Will the groundhog see her shadow?

It certainly feels like spring with muddy roads and 50 degrees yesterday. In fact, most of this winter has felt more like pre-spring. Here in the North Country, we've had only one week of zero degree temperatures and only a thin coverlet of snow.

So, during these next 7 weeks until spring equinox, what are we pregnant with? What's our deepest longing?

Even though we are aiming toward non-attachment, the Buddha gave a talk about "One Fortunate Attachment." Fortunately, we have desire for the Dharma, otherwise we would not be on this path.

What's your Dharma desire?
I'm spending 5 of the next 7 weeks on silent retreat. Consider taking just one day of silence yourself.

As Father Thomas Keating, an ecumenical contemplative says,

Silence is the language God speaks and everything else is a bad translation.