Deer Eating My Shrubs

Well, well, well. Look who came to visit this morning in between my 6:00 meditation and my 7:00 sit. Four deer, all decked out in their heavy winter coats, were taste-testing my shrubs.

Daintily, one nibbled the leaves off the PJM rhododendron. Another one tried the leaves of the swamp azalea, whose pink flowers smell so deeply of cinnamon in June. Another one munched on the fuzzy buds of the star magnolia, and someone else tried the twig ends of hobblebush.

When i went out to the deck to take a picture of the cute Bambis, they fled.

A beautiful meditation state can nibble our body. Oh, look! At which point, it runs off into the woods and disappears. 

Patience my dear. Patience if you are stealthily stalking the beautiful mind. And patience if you want to see the cute deer.

Banana Ketchup

 

When we were in St. Lucia, in the Caribbean, a few years ago, i bought a bottle of banana ketchup. I like to try local food. 

However, doubt is my worthy opponent--What would banana ketchup taste like? It took me a year or two to actually open the bottle. I don't use ketchup that often.

Delicious! Banana ketchup tastes great!

But now my banana ketchup is gone. Gone. 

And if i pay attention, i notice that doubt is also gone.

Light Shining Through My Arborvitae

The deer are nibbling my arborvitae, as i suspected they would. I've seen rows of tall arborvitae shaped like popsicles with a long bare stick at the bottom, up to the height of a deer nose. Mine is looking rather threadbare at the bottom and is surrounded by deer tracks in the snow.

Its neighbors are surviving because they are still bedecked with Christmas lights. I suppose a string of lights doesn't taste as good as the fresh green of arborvitae.

No matter how threadbare we feel, after life has nibbled on us here and there, we can let our heart light shine.

I'm going to put some strings of lights on this arborvitae to see if that will save it from popsicle fate.

 

Not So Red Tomatoes

I harvested 50 green Italian tomatoes before the first frost two weeks ago. I've been waiting for them to redden and eating the reddest one every day. But lately, well, they aren't all that red; they are a yellowish-red. I guess that means orange. And they are starting to taste like mushy store-bought tomatoes. They've lost their fresh-from-the-garden flavor.

This is what happens when we drift away from direct experience of our meditation object. The object (the breath, the body, metta) becomes mushy, not as clear, and not as delicious.

The tomatoes will never regain their true tomato-y-ness, so i'm making sauce out of them.

But we can freshen up our attention. Straight up our posture. Take a few deep breaths to energize the body. Become interested in something or other. Investigate. One of my favorite investigations is how dullness works.

I'm going to make sauce out of dullness yet!

Purple Pod Peas

Suddenly, i have peas. And some of the pea pods are purple! Surprise! What did i plant anyway?

Plant a radish.
Get a radish,
not a Brussels sprout.

The same holds true of our mental qualities. Plant self-judgment and harvest self-judgment. As a matter of fact, plant judgment (of others), and harvest self-judgment because (here's the tricky part), since you know you judge, you assume that others are judging you--which may, in fact, not be true.

Judgments and opinions can be a lot of fun, and they can even be funny, but they will come back to bite you.

I'm biting into the purple pea pod to see how it tastes.

Okra. Well, Okay.

I'm visiting family in Georgia, and on Saturday we go to the Farmer's Market. All the vendors are selling okra. I am a true Northerner. I have no idea what to do with okra, but my niece buys a batch and fries it up for our fish tacos. Okra is delicious.

Okra has a reputation. People who love it, love it. And people who aren't so sure about it are relying on word-of-mouth instead of taste-of-mouth.

We don't like it when someone sullies our reputation. We want a fair hearing, and we want people to like us for who and what we are.

Let's give okra a fair hearing, a fair tasting. We might even like it, just as it is.

Lovely Jasmine Tea

I'm drinking a cup of jasmine tea as i write. I love the smell of the jasmine as much as the taste of the green tea. But then i wonder why i do not like Earl Grey, which is black tea infused with bergamot (which is not bee balm but a bergamot orange).

Jasmine tea is pleasant.
Earl Grey unpleasant.

Perhaps you find Earl Grey pleasant and jasmine tea unpleasant.

No matter. We actually don't have a choice about this perception. It simply occurs. Pleasant or unpleasant. Then we have a choice whether to simply let it be--a sense perception arising and just as quickly ceasing. Or whether to believe our perception and make it into a view, an opinion.

Views. Opinions. Judgments. There be dragons. And suffering.

Much safer to simply notice pleasant and let it go.

Homeopathic Remedy

After trying every anti-itch salve in the house for my poison ivy, my acupuncturist told me about the homeopathic remedy Rhus Tox. Rhus is sumac and toxicodendron is poison ivy, so i'm not sure exactly what is actually in Rhus Toxicodendron, but i can tell you this: It works. Itches went from front-row fiery to distant pings. How tiny sugar pills can do that remains a mystery to me.

Mindfulness can have that effect. We sit down with worry, anxiety, or sadness. We begin to watch our breath or sensations in the body. If we can keep our attention circling around or near our meditation object, those dark thoughts become like scattered clouds in the sky with periods of sunshine. We recall some sweetness in our lives--gratitude, love, or kindness--and taste that tiny taste.

Smile.

A Taste for What's Good for You

My friend Samantha took me to the Duke Gardens today. We practically swam through five terraces of daffodils and tulips. So much spring packed in to these gardens. I particularly liked the red ruffled kale tucked in with the pink tulips.

It took me many years to develop a taste for kale. It always tasted too green and nutritious.Then someone told me about kale chips, and i was hooked. I love kale chips and kale salad.

Mindfulness also seemed like one of those things that's "good for you" and therefore, boring. It took a few years for me to develop a taste for mindfulness and realize the subsequent calmness really felt pretty nice.

Now i love mindfulness. Especially when i'm eating kale chips.

Changing Seasons, Changing Tastes

It's fascinating how my tastebuds change with the seasons. Even though i have ripe garden tomatoes sitting on the window sill, i don't get around to eating them. I'm hungry for winter squash and kale. I'm done with fresh corn, even though it's still available at the nearby farm stand.

When we are young, we think we are our hormones. Oh, how sexy we think we are. But then, the sexy season changes, and i'm not hungry for sex any more. In middle age, we are so smart and know-it-all, but then the career season changes, and we look at middle-aged people and smile. We are married, and we think we are such a strong, dynamic couple, but then one dies, and suddenly we see that what we thought was "me" was really "us."

Seasons change. Our tastes change. Our very selves change. So who are we? Really?

The Real Thing

This morning i picked and ate the first ripe cherry tomato in my garden. Oh, my. It tastes like a tomato! Twenty minutes later, the flavor lingers in the back of my mouth. Real tomatoes at last. So much better than supermarket tomatoes. Even better than locally grown hothouse tomatoes.

Taste the real thing: Calm.

Close your eyes and meditate for a minute right now. Breathe. Taste the calm. Notice that you are alive. Watch tiny shards of anxiety creep in. Notice opening your eyes to look at the computer screen. Breathe. You are alive. And peace is in the room, right beside you.