Native Sun Chokes

 It's time for Jerusalem artichokes, which are now marketed as "sun chokes." One friend says sun chokes are better than potatoes. Sun chokes are just a little bit sweet.

I like all the perennial vegetables (and fruits) that show up in my garden. I do hardly anything, and voila! There they are.

If i want to decolonize my diet, sun chokes are a good way to begin. They were grown by the indigenous peoples of North America. They are native to this continent. No fossil fuels were used in the transport of this vegetable. Just foot power. One foot for the spade to dig them up, and two feet to walk them from the garden to kitchen.

Delicious.

The Right Tool

The right tool for planting bulbs in the  semi-frozen ground is the Spear Head Spade. This narrow, pointy shovel is great for dividing root-y plants, like hostas, that you would otherwise want to take the hatchet to. At this time of year, it's narrow point is good for breaking through the 2-inch frozen crust of earth to get to the dirt underneath and dig a hole for bulbs.

I love having the right tool for the job, and my shed is full of tools so that when i'm ready to do a particular job, i can grab the right implement.

The right tool for our daily life is mindfulness. Yes, we also have many other tools available to us--loving-kindness, compassion, non-judgmentalness, sensory clarity. Choose the right tool for the job. Let's implement mindfulness today. Now.

Ode to Shovels

I needed a snow shovel yesterday to clear away the 2 inches of wet snow on the hot tub deck. However, the snow shovels were in deep storage, hanging on nails on the wall of the garage behind the stack of 8 snow tires.

I say snow shovelS (plural), because, in the winter, we keep a snow shovel at each door--the front door, the back door, and the deck door. But, of course, they had all been put away weeks ago.

I also have three D-handled shovels that i scatter around: one lives at the vegetable garden, one at the compost pile, and one in the lower flower gardens. (My house is built into a hillside.)

I prefer the D-handled shovels because i am 5'3" and shrinking. I do have a long-handled shovel just in case someone tall (ahem!) wants to help me. But it hangs on a nail on the garage wall 364 days a year.

I also have a spade that i love--a transplanting spade with a long, narrow blade that goes deep (good for planting bulbs), but is incisive because of its narrowness.

My latest acquisition is a spear-head spade--a shovel that slices through thick bundles of roots (hosta or daylilies, for example) and is easy on the back.

We dig into the Dharma with a mind that is as calm and sharp as we can make it today through our meditation practice. Some days, perhaps many days, the mind won't be all that calm or all that sharp. Nevertheless, after our 20 minutes (or longer) meditation, we can spend 5 or 10 minutes contemplating some aspect of the Dharma. Choose any page from The Meditative Gardener. Or a paragraph from the Dharma book or other inspirational book you are currently reading. Focus your attention on that teaching and roll it around in your mind for a few minutes.

A calm mind is an incisive mind that can dig right into the roots of stress.
Use the tools you have to dig into life--as it really is.