Beautiful Songs

Sitting on the deck this morning, i listen to birds singing. My forester neighbor, Lynn Levine told me yesterday how to distinguish between a wood thrush and a hermit thrust. The hermit's song begins with a solitary note before moving on to a complicated and then melancholy flute trill. The wood thrush sings, "Ee-oh-lay."

We also distinguish among beautiful states of mind--loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy--in order to become more familiar with them. Loving-kindness is the heart's natural response to another person. Think of 3-year-olds at a park. They immediately make friends with one another, without even knowing each others' names.

Compassion is the heart's natural response to suffering. Think of 1-year-olds who start crying when they hear another child crying in the grocery store.

We all still have these natural openings of the heart, these divine emotions, but now our beliefs often clog their expression. "Big girls don't cry."

It's time to listen closely to our hearts to hear these songs of love. There's no better place to hear these quiet songs than the calmness in our gardens

The Fragrance of the Silktree

While on retreat last week, i tried not to practice random acts of gardening, but sometimes i just had to reach out and deadhead a tiger lily. By the fourth day of 95 degree heat in Virginia, i couldn't bear to look at the wilting impatiens under an oak tree. I poured my 20-ounce water bottle over it that evening, and it looked considerably better the next morning.

My greatest joy was to walk in the cool of the early morning or the late evening as far as the silktree with its pink powderpuff blossoms (stamens actually) that emitted a delightfully sweet fragrance.

This tree is native to northern India and ranges from Iran to China. Like the silktree, Buddhism is now naturalizing in the United States, spreading the sweet fragrance of the Dharma.

The Meditative Gardener is on Retreat until June 28

When the Birds Begin to Sing

At 4:20 a.m., when the sky is Maxfield Parrish blue, only Venus remains in the sky, watching over 2 bats mating in mid-air to a chorus of birds singing.

My Favorite Varieties

Driving home from teaching meditation at the assisted living facility, i stop at Kindle Farm, a farm school for troubled adolescents. Their single greenhouse is 3/4 full of overgrown and blooming plants. The eggplants are a foot tall and already have tiny fruit. I gave up on eggplants a few years ago, but i can't resist these well-muscled plants that might do very well in the full sun of my community garden plot.

I also buy my favorite Italian tomato--San Marzano--a long meaty paste tomato. And there's Marble Arch! A lovely purple and pink annual salvia. And Lemon Gem marigolds! (Also Tangerine Gem.) I love these gems because you can eat them in salads. These are exactly the varieties i used to grow from seed, but they're hard to find, even at the Farmers' Market.

I buy 2 flats, even though i know i've said it's too hot to transplant. Today is overcast and sprinkling, so I conveniently forget my own advice, my own words of wisdom.

I buy these 8 dozen plants because i know i'm supporting a good cause--young people with an interest in growing things (including themselves). Plants and young people--i'm doubling my joy.

Mosquito Repellent from Thailand

We went to Thailand 3 years ago, and one of the things i brought home as a souvenir was mosquito repellent. I figured that if anyone knows how to deal with mosquitoes, it would be people who live in a tropical country that has monsoons for 3 months and flooding for another 3 months.

I couldn't read the label that had a picture of lemon grass, but the spray bottle and the citronella scent appealed to me.

In May and June, i close my eyes and spray around my hairline, which is where the tiny blackflies like to bite me. Now that deer ticks are rampant, i also spray my cuffs at my wrists and ankles.

Mindfulness has the effect of repelling bothersome thoughts. Sure, you can still hear them buzzing around, and they may even land for a while. But soon they take off of their own accord without you swatting them.

Who knows? Maybe they're on their way to bother someone else.

Valerian. Or is that Heliotrope?

At the garden club meeting last evening, we watched a florist arrange flowers for about an hour--amazing things she did with such simple materials. Then we tried arranging the buckets of flowers we had brought.

"What's this?" someone asked holding up a tall stem topped by tiny, tight, white flowers.

"Does it smell good?" i asked. "It's valerian."

She continued to walk around with her stem and ask other women what this flower was. Someone else said, "Heliotrope."

Valerian is sometimes called garden heliotrope because of its sweet smell, even though it is not related to heliotrope.

I collect factoids--such as flower names--because it's easy for me, and because i like to be right. I do not like being wrong. The duality of right/wrong is an abyss that, as we know, can lead to war. A more skillful duality is harm/harmless. Do these words or this behavior harm someone? Or is it harmless?

It is actually harmless to call a flower by an inappropriate name. There may be a mix-up of understanding, but it is kinder--more harmless--to allow others to express their opinions. It may feel unpleasant to me, but that is a passing feeling, unless i proliferate about it and wallow in the unpleasantness. That's just me making myself uncomfortable.

Whatever its name, the sweet-smelling tall stem with a white flower looks beautiful in a bouquet.