Comparing Snow

All sorts of grumbling is rumbling around here about the snow. Harrumph.
It's supposed to be spring.
Our Facebook friends from California are posting pictures of magnolia blossoms, and all we have to look at are the pregnant buds of the red maple.
And it's cold here. Bah, humbug.

Can you hear the comparing mind at work?
"It's supposed to be" spring, but it looks like winter.
Flowers are blooming elsewhere, but not here.
It's cold here (18 degrees this morning). It was warm last week when i was in Cancun/Costa Rica/the Caribbean/Tel Aviv.

The mind compares our present experience with some other (past or imaginary) experience, and we feel dissatisfied with the present moment.

We could simply experience the raw data of the present moment: chilly, sunny, snowy, beautiful, hungry birds, red maple buds. This is the truth of the moment. Before our opinions reclaim our attention and twist our heart into grumpiness.

Thanks to Dawn Downey for her blog,
 Stumbling Toward the Buddha.

Poppy Seeds Season

It's time to sow poppy seeds. My packets say, "Sow outdoors in earliest spring." Since today is the first day of spring, i'd say it is indeed "earliest spring."

I love the re-seeding annual Papaver somniflorum. I have pink aplenty, so i'm trying to get some purples going, like Lauren's Grape or Hungarian Breadseed.

California poppies don't do as well for me, but i keep trying anyway. This year i'm scattering Alba. It seems like Icelandic poppies should do well here in the North Country, but i haven't had luck with them either.

Figuring out which path to follow can be as challenging as deducing which plants will work in our particular microclimate and soils. Sometimes it's just the luck of the draw.

I began with Insight (vipassana) meditation when i was 30, and that was a good fit for me, so haven't felt drawn to further seeking. Some personalities prefer the spareness of Zen, some the exotic rituals of Tibetan Vajrayana, and some the poetic kindness of Thich Nhat Hanh.


Simply walk through the door that opens for you. And sow the seeds of mindfulness and kindness as early as you can.

Revolution of the Mind

As i look out on 12 inches of diamond-sparkling snow, it's hard to imagine that in 6 weeks, i'll be hosting a garden party. Flowers will be blooming, and bees will be buzzing. A revolution is about to happen--in weather and in the flowerbeds--but at the moment, all is quiet.

We sit quietly in meditation (whether or not our mind is quiet :). Today's meditation seems pretty much the same as yesterday's. We can't imagine anything different, really. And then, when we least expect it, a revolution happens--an insight. We see something differently. Sometimes an insight can change our lives.

So we sit. Watching the fluffy snow. Hardly noticing how it melts into rivulets nor giving more than a glance to the spring-rushing brook that is about to wash us clean.

Photo from winngraycampground.com

Creation

I'm snowed in today, so i could sit down with my languishing seed catalogs and yearn for spring planting. Or i could focus on my houseplants and give them a thorough house-cleaning. Snip, snip. Trim them back. Root more cuttings. (So far i have 25 jars of cuttings.) Or pot up the 10 jars of cuttings that have already rooted.

The urge to sow seeds and plant seedlings is so strong. In the spring, we focus on creation and shout Hooray.

When i write about the ends of the life cycle in the fall, a friend puts her hand on my arm and says, "Cheryl, are you okay? You write so much about death on your blog. Are you depressed?"

Beginnings. Endings. Life comes and life goes.

For now, life is coming soon. Let's en-joy it.

Fertilizing Your Practice

On these longer sunny days, my passive solar house heats up to broiling by mid-day. Outdoors is breezy and brisk and still below freezing.

I'm ready to go outdoors and garden, but the gardens are either covered in snow or bare and frozen.

I resign myself to gardening in my solarium in my underwear--taking cuttings of begonias, spider plants, and last year's flower pots from the front step. The houseplants are all looking a bit scraggly and in need of pruning and fertilizing.

How do we fertilize our own meditation practice?

Download some Dharma talks onto your iPhone. Meditate with a friend. Go on retreat. Do a retreat at home (by phone) for a few hours. Read a Dharma book. Take a meditation class. Or just meet a Dharma friend for tea.

Inspire yourself.

First Impressions

A landscape designer tells me to attend to the entry of your property. You'd like it to tell your visitors, even if only very subtly, You are entering a special place.

Since i live in the woods, my "message" is quite subtle indeed. My first step was to rebuild the stone wall that marks the corner of my property on the road, thereby making it look "official" instead of tumble-down.

The next 200 feet of woods has been thinned considerably for a hide-and-reveal look at my house. Now-you-see-it, now-you-don't.

While we lavish attention on our bodies to make a good first impression, we allow our minds to run wild like unruly children. Let's lavish some attention on our minds as well.

Over time, meditation calms the mind, which then becomes joyful. Yes, the mind can be joyful even when life takes a left-hand turn.


A mind left to its own devices runs on anxiety, worry, desire, irritation, or judgment. Even though people can't see your mind, they can "feel" it.

What kind of first impression would you like to make?

Forcing Forsythia

I waded into the overgrown forsythia bush and sawed off one of the 5 main stems, over an inch thick, at ground level.

Before i tossed it on the brush pile, i clipped off several branches and put them in water, hoping to force the forsythia twigs to bloom indoors.

Sometimes our life may seem overgrown with things straggling here and there. Take heart. Be strong. Wade in and prune something off. Say, "No" to something that's taking over your life (or, in the case of my forsythia, taking over my driveway.)

Less is more. More time to breathe. More time to smell the roses--or the hyacinths.

The trimmer forsythia looks so much better. Our trimmer lives feel so much better.