Speaking of Foxes

Yesterday morning the turkeys walked across our snow-covered lawn. This morning, a fox.

Seconds before, our deck had been full of squirrels scavenging for sunflower seeds. They disappeared. I walked into the kitchen just in time to shout "Fox!" to Bill at the kitchen table.

The fox was in no hurry, so i fumbled with my smartphone-camera and snapped a couple of photos before the fox disappeared into the shadows of the forest.

If we are foxy in our meditation, we can catch those dagnabbit distractions before they lead us into completely forgetting our meditation object.

One possibility is to open the lens of awareness wide. The squirrels who disappeared had wide-open awareness, which told them to skedaddle because danger was afoot.

With wide-open awareness, we can catch the distraction before it catches us. Otherwise, our mind goes trotting off into the woods.

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.

Invasive

I took a walk in the woods yesterday and found a hundred yards of myrtle. No house could be seen, but i was walking on an old logging road, probably now used once a year for sugaring. Perhaps that dip near the road was an old cellar hole? Someone lived here once upon a time, but all traces of human habitation have disappeared. Except for rampant myrtle.

In Kentucky, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Georgia, myrtle is an invasive species. Our local garden club, Perennial Swappers, forbids gardeners bringing myrtle to give away. We know what it's going to look like a hundred years from now.

Karma is like this. We indulge in just a little bit of unskillful action--gossip, one drink too many, taking something when no one is looking.

Thoughts become words.

Words become deeds.

Deeds develop into habits.

Habits harden into character.

Watch the mind and its ways with care, born out of concern for all beings.

Our unskillful thoughts, words, and behaviors follow us past death. Old cemeteries here in New England are often surrounded by myrtle (Vinca).

Apples Tempting Deer

 

The old apple tree in my lawn is dropping apples, so i hurry out there and pick them up before the deer discover them. Sometimes, a squirrel scurries away, so i throw his partially-eaten apple into the woods. I really do not want the deer browsing in my flowerbeds. What they don't know (i.e., that apples grow here) won't hurt them.

Sometimes, what we don't know does eventually hurt us.Ignorance is not always bliss. Ignorance is what keeps the wheel of samsara turning. Through meditation and mindfulness, we begin to see things as they really are.

Really, i should say that what the deer don't know won't hurt me, my feelings, or my garden.

Day 44 by Guest Blogger Ellen Pratt

Day 44 of Vermont’s stay-at-home order and my life has taken on a dreamy quality, a feeling of being suspended in time and space. The minutes blend together into hours, the hours into days. I no longer need to check the time and I rarely look at my calendar as there are so few obligations now.  My life has shrunk to a five square mile Eden that I can reach on foot from my front door.   

I’m reveling in this new life. There’s a pervasive calm and a feeling of boundarylessness between me and my small world.  There’s no bracing against the sharp, early spring air, no automatically reaching for a coat when I leave the house for my daily walk. I stuff my scarf into my pocket, preferring to feel the wind against my face and neck. 

When I walk in the woods I am the stillness and the world is entering me. The tall oak and locust trees I once saw as foreboding now stand as serene sentinels granting me entry into their mystical palace.  I hike the hemlock ledge trail, climbing through the brown, dry, deciduous forest to the highest elevation in the neighborhood, a verdant world where moss-carpeted trails blend into moss-covered boulders sprouting miniature, feathery ferns. The lacy, emerald hemlock branches screen the cerulean sky, and a small, orange moth floats on a sunbeam and dances before me.

I’m captivated by the diversity of birdsong washing over me as I spend hours in the backyard lounge chair.  I’m as thrilled by this as by Yoyo Ma’s cello I listen to while making dinner.  If life doesn’t return to its pre-pandemic state I’ll never again want for anything as long as I have the birds and the music. 

I watch the fat female robin nesting in the eve of the woodshed. The chicks must be newborn for she hasn’t moved in a few days and her partner is busily delivering her meals and feeding her. I’ve spied on him through my field-glasses, hopping through the grass and cocking his head, aiming his one eye down and then stabbing his fierce beak to nab the prey. The worm looks impossibly fat through the binoculars and I almost think it’s a snake. The robin swallows it in one gulp.  Later I see him dangling a short, skinny worm in his beak to bring to his mate during her vigil. 

I notice the budding, origami leaves of the lilac unfolding each day. And the modest trillium in the woods, all dressed up and no place to go. My husband brings into the house a few flowering peach tree  branches that he pruned from the tree out back. He carefully trims the stems and gives them center stage on the cold wood stove in the front room.

At night I walk down the dark road, open to the mystery that has been revealing itself to me lately as I’ve opened to it.  I hear a soft flapping above me and look up to see a lone Canada Goose flying low,  just above the stand of pine trees at the edge of the road.  The moon is full and encircled by a hazy halo.  Down by the pond, where the goose has landed, the wood frogs are croaking their riotous anthem to the brilliant stars overhead. 

My Tulips are Blooming

The tulips i forced in pots and brought indoors are starting to bloom. So outdoors they go, because they will last longer in the refrigerator weather out there.

The bulbs, which have been hiding out in the gloom of the garage for 4 months, are out in the open air. I think that's a good sign for me, who has been quarantined at home for less than 2 weeks.

Today i was out in a neighbor's woods, cutting down saplings with a friend. We stayed at least 6 feet apart from each other's saws. We are clearing the understory to allow more light and air.

That's what we all need: more light and more air.

Glowing Mums

As i'm sitting at the breakfast table, i look across the lawn to the woods. There, in a 3-foot square corner, i've planted some eye-popping mums, which are a pleasure to look at.

This little area is not an official flowerbed. It's usually just background. In the spring, it's filled with forget-me-nots and ferns in the summer.

But as i look across my now barren flowerbeds, the mums make me happy.

In the autumn of our lives, as age muddies our sense doors and hearing, seeing, smelling, and tasting become more fuzzy and indistinct, where do we find our happiness? Happiness despite outer conditions.

The mums glow even on a rainy day.

Bandana Protection

It's hunting season here in the north woods. Time to wear bright orange or dayglo yellow when i go for a walk. Neighbors tie red bandanas around the necks of their dogs.

The subject is deer. Those sweet Bambis who graze in our yards. Deer are so over-populated (30 per square mile instead of the optimum 18) that they are desperate for food. Our rhododendrons and other shrubs suffer. My star magnolia has a "waist" at deer nose height where all the buds and branches have been nibbled.

Deer also carry deer ticks, which in turn are carriers of Lyme disease.

We want to protect ourselves and our loved ones when we are walking in the woods. This wish can be incorporated into our loving-kindness phrases: May i be safe and protected. May i be safe from inner and out danger.

Loving-kindness is our antidote to fear. Fear of hunters, fear of ticks, fear of our own minds.

Gardening for Bear

A bear wandered into my meditation at 6:45 this morning. I opened my eyes just as he walked out of the woods and across the lawn. He meandered over to the hobblebush at the other edge of the lawn, and breakfasted on some hobblebush berries.

I have heard of bee and butterfly gardens, but i didn't realize i have a bear garden.

Sometimes, our minds are too welcoming for our particular bear-of-a-problem. In his sermon on dealing with distracting thoughts, the Buddha outlines 5 methods. The first is to change the subject. Another way to say this is "substitute the opposite." "The opposite" is usually a form of kindness--metta or compassion or gratitude. Choose your kindness now, so that the next time that bear-of-a-problem wanders into your mind, you'll be ready to feed yourself some kindness.

Bug Hotel

While cutting across Russell Square in London, i stopped to have a look at the bug hotel.

Russell Square is surrounded by hotels for people, so it seems appropriate that bugs should have their own "hotel" in an effort to promote biodiversity.

Bees might make their home inside hollow reeds. Dead leaves and bark provide homes for other insects. My insect "hotel" at home is a dead tree. One dead tree can host 52 different creatures, so we keep several dead trees standing in the woods near our house.

Our own dead bodies can host several creatures. One friend who died last fall had a green burial for this very reason. Her shrouded body was not embalmed and was placed in a cardboard coffin that was decorated by her family and friends. The coffin was then placed in a shallow grave also with several worms.

Our compost piles are excellent bug hotels. Kitchen scraps rot and become dirt, thanks to bugs and bacteria.

Life springs forth out of dead stuff.

Paved Paradise

Our Airbnb condo in Puerto Rico faces a beach park, so we are in a great location. But every time we go out the back door to the parking lot to get in the car, we slow down and listen. It's so quiet back there. The parking lot faces a woodsy low land of about 5 acres. It feels like a bird sanctuary. The parking lot is not only quiet and spacious, we hear birds singing, and we feel.... What is that? Paradise?

How can a parking lot be paradise? I am reminded of the Joni Mitchell song, "They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot." That's what this parking lot feels like.

This morning i took a beach chair out behind the industrial-sized generator and sat there for an hour meditating, gazing at the woods, and listening to the birds of paradise singing.

Woods Asters

Woods Asters & Phlox

Perennial Swappers swapped perennials for the last time this season, and then came to visit my fabulous fall garden. Lots of color here. One combination, i particularly like is lavender woods asters and plain old pink phlox.

Only in the past few years have i decided to just let woods asters grow in my gardens on the edge of the woods. Before that, i weeded them out. But now i love them, especially en masse. Asters have no problem with massing. They love each other's company.

Whose company do we keep? Who do we hang out with? It's important to spend time with our meditation friends. I've had the good fortune to teach the Dharma every day for the last 4 days--Sunday, i gave a Dharma talk; Monday i taught meditation at the jail; Tuesday i taught mindfulness to hospice volunteers; and today i met with a Dharma friend for tea. The result? A low-grade pervasive joy.

 

Phlox, Purple Aster, & Sanguisorba

Draininge Ditch

It's been a rainy spring and summer, and already it's a rainy fall. Rainwater has drained into my garage and puddled in the basement. My sweetie has been waiting, waiting, for the road maintenance guys to put a crown on our private dirt road, a crown on our dirt driveway, and to do something about the drainage. When he flew to Portland, Oregon to meet me after my retreat, one of the first things he talked about was his exasperation with the process. "There's a great big ditch between your gardens. I can't possibly drive the truck over it. Call them and tell them to do something about it. They took away your beautiful garden soil. Now what are they going to do?!!"

Since the father of the road guys carved my driveway out of the woods 38 years ago, and his then-teenage boys were his crew, i have the utmost confidence in their artistry with a backhoe. Bill was the one who was bothered. "You call them," i said. "I can't quite picture it being as bad as you say."

When we returned home from our vacation, we found the ditch filled with crushed rock--all the better to drain the driveway. Hooray!

Worry is believing that something bad is going to happen in the future. Curiosity waits and wonders, "I wonder what's going to happen."

This ditch full of rocks is a better solution than i could have imagined.

Change of Life. Change of Season.

Suddenly, the trees are bare. Two days ago, the maples still wore their red and yellow leaves. Then a tremendous wind blew through, ripping everything to shreds. The bare trees look unlovely now. Change of life; change of season.

When we women go through the change of life, our beauty leaves, and people (men, in particular) no longer look at us or even see us. They look right through us.

But suddenly we can see clearly. All those decades we were at the mercy of our hormones. It turns out, that's not who we really are.

Now that the trees have lost their leaves, i can see so much farther into the woods.

Rats!

Rats have arrived in my neck of the woods. My neighbor, who has chickens, saw a rat yesterday in her chicken coop, followed quickly by a mink who chased the rat across the lawn, caught it by the neck, and took it home to the baby minks for breakfast.

Living in the woods, i expect a certain seclusion--no traffic goes past my house--and i enjoy the wildlife. Now i expand my definition of wildlife to include rats.

This new "neighbor" with its unsavory reputation has moved in. If i resist and cry "Not in my back yard!" my mind suffers the conflict of I-don't-want with but-I-have. What we resist, persists.

After all, i'm also neighbor to a mink.

Epimedium

Epimedium in January

Epimedium's burnished burgundy leaves line my driveway. Also called barrenwort, this plant thrives in the dry shady woods around my house.

Epimedium's little flowers come early, in April, along with the daffodils, but the flowers can be camouflaged by last year's spent foliage, so you have be the quick observer. Otherwise, the lovely little flowers are gone.

I like a colony of epimedium, which forms a lovely wave of green during the next 4 months of the gardening season. In other words, epimedium has staying power.

We've heard that beauty is skin-deep, and, perhaps we know from experience, beauty is brief.

Let's cultivate the beautiful mind and the beautiful heart.

Epimedium in April

Leaf-Blowing

I live on a private road, which is 2/3 of a mile long, with 8 other households. We hire our own road maintenance, which keeps our dirt road in tip-top condition. There are times of year, when it looks and feels much better than some town-maintained roads.

The road grader comes twice a year--spring and fall--and a few years ago, he told us to rake the leaves off the edges of the road. We live in the woods, so there are tons of leaves every fall.

Over time, the dead leaves turn to compost, then the dirt road turns to mud in the spring, and then we are all unhappy. So, every fall, we hire my gardener, Elisha, to blow the leaves off the sides of the road. It takes her about 4 hours, walking behind a powerful leaf blower. (She tried the back-pack variety one year, and it took twice as long.)

The Buddha recommended the 8-fold Noble Path to us, and, if we choose to walk that path, it will help us keep our path of clean living clear. We keep that path clear by walking our walk every day, with mindfulness. Which one can you commit to today?

1. Wise View 
2. Wise Intention 
3. Wise Speech 
4. Wise Action 
5. Wise Livelihood 
6. Wise Effort 
7. Wise Mindfulness 
8. Wise Concentration

Hepatica Are Blooming

Hepatica are blooming in the woods. This first wildflower pokes out of a carpet of dead leaves to dance in the spring breeze.

I have 1 little patch of them in my 10 acres. I have never seen any in my neighbors' surrounding 75 acres.

I have something you don't have. Nah-nah-nah nah-nah-nah.

How we long to take credit for situations as if they belonged to us. How we love to bolster I/me/mine.

But does the hepatica "belong" to me? It was there when i moved here 33 years ago, and with luck, it will probably be there when i die. Does that make it mine?

How we take pride in our bodies:

• I didn't need reading glasses until i was 56.
• I weigh the same as i did in high school.*
• When i bend over, my hands touch the floor.

 We say these things as if we controlled our bodies, but control doesn't work like that. Yes, we can set up some lifestyle conditions--a good diet, exercise, preventive maintenance--but unexpected things happen. That's when we know, that really, we are not in control.

Meanwhile, hepatica are blooming in the woods, spring is happening, and we are alive in such bodies as we have.


*  Not me! But i've heard a friend say this.

Fall Colors

The garden chores have slowed to a crawl. This sunny day is a day to take a walk in the woods, shuffle through those crunchy leaves and smell those dry leaves that are now just five or six feet from our noses (instead of fifty or sixty feet). The leaves are changing color fast now, as chlorophyll production slows to a halt, leaving the yellow color that has been there all along, but invisible to our eyes.

We may think our mind is colored by red anger, green envy, blue melancholy, or yellow cowardice.

Meditation eventually calms us sufficiently so that we catch a glimpse of the clearness of mind. That clarity has been there all along, just covered over by the colors of our emotions.

Let's take a walk today and really pay attention to the clarity of the fall colors.