Amaryllis Blooms

My first amaryllis of the season bloomed today! I have about a dozen amaryllis bulbs in pots that i carry over from year to year.  Last year, i had an amaryllis blooming every week from Christmas into April.

I've made a commitment to amaryllis despite their strappy foliage. I "hide" the plants in my sweetie's music studio in the basement until they come into bloom. Then i bring the blooming bulb upstairs to the kitchen where it can stand alone on center stage and where i can see it every time i walk through the kitchen.

What's one quality that you would like to work toward? This month, i'm practicing compassion. You might choose kindness or generosity or patience or....

Put that quality in the center of your meditation--today or this week. Find little opportunities for it to take center stage. Then one day, it will bloom when you weren't even expecting it.

Half-Dead

We're having a Pacific Northwest winter here in the Northeast. Foggy, misty, and in the forties. Snow and ice is nowhere in sight. Alyssum is still blooming.

It's blooming in a protected spot; it's half dead. But it's half alive too.

A friend who sings in our local hospice choir tells of visiting a man who was skin-and-bones and just hours away from death. The choir sang, "I still have joy. I still have joy. After all the things i've been through, i still have joy." The man smiled; he obviously still had joy, even though he was what we would call half-dead.

Even half-dead things are still half-alive, and they can still bring us joy.

Round-Robin Generosity

A neighbor left 3 forcing vases and 5 shallow bowls of rocks (for forcing narcissus) for me. Last winter, i gave her a forcing vase with a blooming hyacinth, and a couple of weeks later, another one. Now she returns the vases to me. I bet you can guess what i will give her, come February.

This round-robin of generosity builds the muscle of generosity in each of us.

Pass it on.

Garlic Turkey Broth

Garlic Scape Pesto

I have a cold, so i'm eating garlic, lots of it, every day. Last night's dinner was a quart of turkey bone broth with a half-pint of garlic scape pesto. It's strong. I'm hoping the bone broth makes my own bones strong.

Garlic is a strong taste, somewhat unpleasant. Yet, the thought of garlic is pleasant, since I trust the healing powers of garlic.

Pleasant. Unpleasant. These feelings, these impressions simply arise and pass away. The rest is story.

Earliest Sunset

Today is the earliest sunset of the year. Of course, as we are approaching solstice (sun standing still), it looks like the sun is setting at the same time all week.

Here at 43 degrees north (not quite half-way between the equator and the North Pole), the sun sets at 4:16 p.m.. It's dark at 4:30. Evenings at home last a long time.

 We think many things in our life are standing still--our body, our steady relationship, our house, our car. But really, really, things are changing every second. You have to look closely to notice this.

By winter solstice, we will have gained three minutes at the end of the day. Three tiny minutes in two weeks isn't even glacial speed, yet the earth keeps turning. Notice the light.

Beautiful Junk

My wind catcher ornament fell apart last night. The outer rim is now separated from all that glorious prismatic metallic color. Aided, i assume, by a 4-footed creature--either a squirrel or a raccoon.

Another garden ornament, gone. And now that it's in pieces, i realized i've always had a certain dissatisfaction with it. The location i put it in wasn't that windy, so it very seldom spun. Truth be told, it had been a long while since i actually noticed it.

Gone, just like everything goes.
A vague dissatisfaction, like so many other things.
Beauty. And now, the not beautiful. Or should i say, the beautiful junk?

Chinese Sacred Lilies

My Chinese sacred lily bulbs arrived in the mail today. These are my favorite paperwhites. Most paperwhites are Ziva, but i prefer the heavenly fragrance of the Tazetta narcissus.

Although i've collected several containers, i'm not sure i have enough. And i've already run out of stones, so this project comes to a halt until i go buy a large bag of white granite chips.

Yesterday, at the craft store, i was eyeing bags of marbles. Oh, they are so attractive, and i'd love to be the type of person who uses those so artistically. But, having bought those marbles before, and then watched them sit in the shed for years, i refrained.

Oh, the self we imagine for ourselves is beautiful or thin or artistic or creative or.... Well, you can fill in the blanks with your own self that you want to be.

The self that we desire to be, but.... Well, really, we can't fit it all in, can we? There's too much stuff, too much information, too much of too much.

I ordered too much of Chinese sacred lilies (50 bulbs). And now i am slightly stressed due to not enough containers and not enough rocks.

Just notice that little stress. All in the name of pursuing happiness.