Burying the Sword

For Christmas, a friend gave me a bronze figure that she thought was a Buddha. Something she picked up at a yard sale. The figure holds his/her hands in the namaste position. When i looked closely, i could see that the figure is wearing a hood, which leads me to suspect that this is a Christian saint.

The saint figure is attached to a small scimitar-type blade that looks rather dangerous. Is this a letter opener?

Since the praying hands and the dangerous knife convey conflicting messages, i decided to bury the sword in a flowerpot. Now one of my houseplants has a praying saint of whatever denomination standing in it quite peaceably..

Can we bury the sword? Can we forgive? Forgiveness is an incredibly important practice. It can begin as easily as "I forgive myself for not understanding...." Just roll that around in your meditation for 10 and 20 minutes and see what comes up.

Relief!

Rich in Gloves

A friend recently gave me a pair of beautiful purple garden gloves. My sweetie thinks i already have too many gardening gloves, and, i have to admit, my glove shelf is full to overflowing. New gloves in means that an old pair of gloves needs to leave.

Oh, this is difficult--to renounce an old pair of gloves. I love my gloves. Yet too much is too much. Too many gloves are too many. So much easier to throw the gloves onto the glove shelf (except they will fall off because the shelf is already full) and just think about it later.

I'm rich in garden gloves. And, in case you hadn't noticed, rich equals stress. The very small stress of having too much.

Aging Stargazer Lily

For Valentine's Day, my sweetie bought me a bouquet with a stem of 3 star-gazer lilies. A week later, the bottom lily has withered and turned brown as the top lily unfolds her bud. I feel i am seeing 3 generations--grandmother, mother, teenage girl. The young one is so beautiful and fertile, my attention is naturally drawn to her. The middle generation still looks lovely but just not as fresh. And the old lady drops her petals on the table, one by one.


Photo by LisaW123

Black Squirrels

We say we are feeding the birds, but we are feeding almost a dozen gray squirrels as well. When they hear us opening the door to the deck, they scatter to the four directions. This morning, i noticed that one of the gray squirrels is black. These "black"squirrels are rare mutations, but colonies of them can develop.

I noticed that all the other squirrels were not noticing the "specialness" of the black squirrel at all. And i wished that i, too, could be so color blind that i would not notice the color of someone's skin.

I'm on Retreat until February 19

I'm on a self-retreat at home.

Amaryllis Joy

My neighbor, Cliff, has inspired me to grow amaryllis. He reliably has an amaryllis blooming every year. Today he has a single amaryllis flower in a vase on the kitchen table.

When you look at just one flower, and when you look in detail, the mind slows down to pure joy.

So it is with mindfulness. By bringing our attention to one thing in each moment, the tension in the body relaxes, the mind relaxes, and voila! Joy arises.

Slow down. Right now. Feel your eyes touching these words. Feel your i-toy under your fingers. Feel the body, as a whole. Notice the mind. Just for a moment.

Sprayer

I bought a new sprayer for the hose in my solarium yesterday. The check-out clerk said, "Now that's something you don't see every day, in January." I could hear the question in her voice.

"The sprayer on the hose in my solarium leaks, shooting water out of the handle," i said.

The coiled hose in my solarium is very handy for watering houseplants. Much handier than lifting 6 gallons of water in a watering can twice a week.

Sometimes we are called to do things out of season. Some of my friends are parenting their grandchildren. Sometimes our lives do not unfold in a so-called "normal" fashion. I am about to go on a one-month self-retreat, the mention of which makes several of my friends flinch even as they are saying "Good for you."

Life unfolds. The ego tries to control Life, but, really, that is quite useless.
Allow your life to simply unfold today--without your touching it and yet being touched by all that Life has to offer. In season or out of season.