Chinese Forget-Me-Not

Chinese forget-me-not (Cynoglossum) is the show-stopper of this late fall season. It's sky blue flowers grab the attention of visitors to my garden. "What's that?" they ask.

I pull up the dead ones and hand the entire plant to my visitor. "Here. You'll have it next year."

Each blue-blue flower turns into a tiny bur of a seed. I often find dozens of them sticking to my pants legs or gloves or shoes. This sort of sticky seed is called a hitchhiker because you can carry it for miles, unaware of your role in the dispersion of this plant.

The word "meme" originally meant a behavior or gesture or manner of speaking that is transmitted by repetition and replication (in a manner analogous to the biological transmission of genes), such as when you find yourself sounding like your mother or using your good friend's turn of phrase or gesture.

When we clean up our moral act, we can transmit kind and caring words and gestures. And isn't that what we truly want to do? Perhaps especially in our polarized society, where memes of meanness and even cruelty are too often perpetuated.

Forget me not mindfulness.

Stickiness

It's raining so much that every morning we have warm fog as the moisture slowly evaporates into the 87% humid air.

As the day's temperature increases, the humidity decreases--until the next thunderstorm this afternoon. Our climate feels and smells like the tropics.

Doors and windows swell and stick. The slightest exertion, and i feel sticky too.

When thoughts stick to us, that's a clue that we are feeling stress. This is what stickiness feels like" inescapable, no way out.

Air-condition your mind by accepting what is.

Ask yourself: Is this thought any of my business? Or is it someone else's?

Even if a thought seems to be about "me" and "mine," it might be none of our business. Maybe we just have to wait for outer events and conditions to unfold.

Notice what a sticky mind feels like in the body. Notice where it "rubs" and "grabs" the body.
Then notice that the sticky thought is a thought.
It's just a thought.
And you can't hold onto that thought no matter how hard you try.

The door opens on the next thought.

 

Photos from stickyquotes.com and depositphotos.com