Pleasant Fades

The holiday centerpiece that i made 4 weeks ago at Garden Club is starting to look a bit stale. It's still green, but.... What? I'm tired of it? It looks like Christmas, and Christmas is gone?

The 3 carnations "passed" a couple of weeks ago and were carried out to the compost pile. The baby's breath has dried out, and their color has shifted from white to off-white, but they're still okay as a dried flower.

In the cleaning up of holiday decorations, the centerpiece has gone outdoors, to live next to the ornamental flowerpot of greens and a gazing globe. The centerpiece is a bit small for the job, but adequate for this supporting role of greenery.

And so life goes. From pleasant to neutral to unpleasant and back again. First, the centerpiece was pleasant. Then i stopped seeing it as it faded to neutral. Then i began "seeing" it again, only now it looked slightly unpleasant. Untimely. Unfresh.

Pleasant--we want it.
Unpleasant--we don't want it.

Are we at the mercy of pleasant and unpleasant?
Grasping every pretty, pleasant thing.
Pushing away every unsightly, unpleasant thing.

As if we could arrive at a place where everything is pleasant.
But even the pleasant fades to neutral, as we tire of it.

Party Time

Party Time is blooming! The tiny white astilbe-like flowers are unremarkable on this hot pink-and-green foliage. Also called Pink-and-Green Joseph's Coat, you'll probably choose one of these names instead of the Latin name Alternanthera.

I bought Party Time instead of impatiens last summer and then brought one plant indoors in the fall. It makes me very happy every time i look at it.

The Pali word metta (Sanskrit: maitri) is often translated as loving-kindness. Sometimes it is called loving-friendliness or goodwill. Other possibilities include amity or benevolence.

We can choose the translation that resonates with us. Because whichever word we choose, metta makes us happy.

Squash to Pie

In the basement, while putting away extension cords from the holidays, i discovered 2 butternut squashes going south. I brought them up to the chopping block in the kitchen, cut off the brown parts, and soon had 3 bags of cubed squash for the freezer, as well as sauteed squash-apples-onions for dinner. My sweetie had been begging for a pumpkin pie, so i made a squash pie instead. (It looks the same.)

Illness surprises us. We go to the doctor for a check-up and find something not quite right. My 47-year-old step-daughter just emerged from a week in the hospital and a bout with inflamed colitis. My 96-year-old hospice client has leukemia, but she subsists on a diet of Pepperidge Farm cookies and Boost, a nutritional drink.

My middle-aged winter squashes had begun to bruise and brown. Most of my friends in their 60s have had skin cancers removed. The women almost all have osteopenia, the predecessor of osteoporosis. Bones begin to weaken inside, unnoticed.

The body only lasts so long. And what it does is beyond our control, no matter how well we take care of it.

Knowing this, knowing that Life consumes Life, what's the harvest of our life? What do we make of our "one wild and precious life"?

Pie photo from farmersdaughterct.wordpress.com

Below Zero

It's 10 below zero on this beautiful, cloud-strewn morning. The birds at the bird feeder have fluffed their feathers so that they look like round balls instead of sleek birds. (And what wind chill do they feel when they fly through the already wind-chilled air?)

Minus ten delineates zone 4 from zone 5. If i buy plants that are hardy in zone 5, that means they'll survive down to -10 degrees. That's today.

I try to buy zone 4 plants that are hardy down to -20. Then i can be pretty sure they will survive the winter.

These very cold temperatures can also have an effect on invasives of all kinds, which have been creeping northward as our climate warms. Lyme ticks are not as prevalent in the northern part of the state, which is mostly zone 4, but also zone 3, and even zone 2 on the mountain tops.

Tree pests such as the hemlock wooly adelgid, which will eventually wipe out our hemlock tree population, can't survive below -10. But we need several days of -10, and only this one is predicted.

We try to knock out our own bad habits by giving them the cold shoulder, but this cold-heartedness only puts them into the deep freeze of repression.

Warmth is the remedy. Feel kindness for yourself and for the bad habit.
I love myself as i am.... (Fill in the blank with the name of your bad habit.)
I love myself as i am, impatient.
I love myself as i am, cold-hearted.
I love myself as i am, feeling unloveable.

Morning sun is streaming into our passive solar house and warming us up on this wind-chilly day.

Photo from wallowamountainproperties.com

Oranges on the Orange Tree

When our friend David moved out of his apartment a year ago, he gave me his potted orange tree. In the summer, i set it outdoors with the other houseplants. Now, it is loaded with little oranges the size of big marbles. These "oranges" don't actually taste good; they're all skin. But it is fun to see a little 3-foot tree loaded with little oranges.

Outdoors, during the summer, the wonderful-smelling orange blossoms were naturally pollinated; something that happened indoors only with the aid of a Q-tip.

When we are first beginning our meditation practice, it may feel as awkward as pollinating orange blossoms. Is this the way you do it? Eventually, we find our meditation community, and then things start to happen "naturally" as we surround ourselves with the Dharma and people who talk about Wise Action. In several more months, we begin to see the fruits of our practice. A bit more calm. Fewer regrettable words. Labeling our emotions. Practicing kindness.

Tropical fruit to warm our hearts, even on a cold and snowy winter day.

Photo from annies-garden.com

Pruning

Gay, the pruner, came yesterday to prune the crabapple and the apple trees. She just shows up, sometime in January or February, and an hour later, 4 trees are pruned.

Under her care and guidance, the 2 old apple trees, that were growing in the woods when i bought this land 35 years ago, have actually produced apples. Our crabapple trees are loaded with blossoms in May.

Pruning goes to show us that less is more. Fewer branches means more flowers and more fruit.

What can we prune from our lives so that we have more fruit in our lives? And fewer busy detouring branches? So that we have more time for meditation. So that we have more calm. More mindfulness. (And maybe more money too.)

I just "pruned" one pile of paper last night. In less than an hour, an area of of two square feet was decluttered. Ahhh. That feels good.

Gay, the pruner

Flat Plastic Vase

For the New Year's Eve sit at Vermont Insight Meditation Center last night, Drew brought a bouquet of alstromeria and a flat plastic vase. How handy! And easy to carry on an icy night. Just puff out the plastic, fill it with water, and the plastic holds its vase shape.

We ourselves hold the shape of our past actions. By this time in life, we've acquired lots of habits--gestures, ways of thinking, manners of speech, and a raft of opinions and judgments. We call this collection of habits "I."

Really, our physical container is puffed up with 60% water. Our container may be naturally good looking, or maybe not so much. But really it is just a container that will one day be flattened by death.

Our habits, our actions are the only thing we own. In this new year of 2014, let's focus on skillful and wholesome and beautiful actions.

I'm beginning by being grateful to Drew for the beautiful bouquet.