Winter Berries

All summer i've been looking at a non-descript shrub outside my kitchen window. That shrub is spreading. What the heck is it? What was i thinking when i put it there?

Now that it's covered with red berries, i see that it is a holly called winterberry. The red berries are a pleasure to look at while i'm doing the dishes, and the berries will last 5 months, until the end of winter.

The shrub has teeny-weeny flowers in the spring, and the plain deciduous leaves have no fall color, but now winterberry is the star of the winter garden.

Meditation practice may look boring and dull in the summer of our lives, but it really bears fruit when we are reduced to the bare bones of life. 

Ageratum Spreads

A few years ago, my Hoosier cousin gave me some seeds from her perennial ageratum, which she considered a weed in her tomato patch.

Now those few plants are a solid mass of blooming blue, about 4 feet long and 2 feet wide. This zone 6 ageratum is a spreader all right. I'm transplanting it out of the nursery bed and into various flower beds. The farther away from the house, the bigger the clumps of flowers. And i have one hillside in which i am happy to let the spreaders spread (bee balm, phlox, gooseneck loosestrife, etc.)

What spreads and takes over our life? Children? Work? Facebook? Or other social media?

Perhaps we are content to be extending compassionate care to children or aging parents. That's just the way life is right now. But sometimes, busy-ness spreads all over our life, and it's time to move those responsibilities somewhere else, onto someone else.

Take a close look at how busy-ness spreads. What one thing can you let go of today?

Photos from fitchburgcemetery.com and nycgardens.blogspot.com

Mint Spreads

Mint is still growing green in the herb garden. In the summer, i use it to make iced tea. Now that ice forms on the birdbath every morning, i cut mint for a cup of hot tea.

Mint is a spreader. It will take over, if left to its own devices. That's the reason i pull it up by its roots when i go out to harvest 3 or 4 sprigs for tea.

Our obligations and responsibilities, our anxieties and planning can spread over our day-to-day life. We cannot cram it all in.

We could pull each one up by the roots and look closely at it. Is it really worth our time, money, and frustration to read the newspaper? to stop and buy a cup of coffee? to race off to the supermarket for one or two items?

What--really--is most important to us?

I'm going to the mint patch now to pull 4 plants out by their roots, then sit down on the deck, have a cup of tea, and enjoy this beautiful sunny day.