What's In A Name?

Shakespeare once wrote: "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." That quote came to mind the other day as I was reading an blog post about the term "Boomers," meaning those folks who are part of what is known as the Baby Boomer generation. The blogger was questioning whether this was a better name than referring to them as Seniors, or Elders, or a host of other names.

When I first started gardening, I tackled it the same way that I always tackle something new - I researched the heck out of it. By the end of the first year I was able to refer to plants by their proper names and recognize most on sight. Twenty-plus years later and except for the more common ones, I'll be darned if I can remember half of them. What they are called matters less to me than how they look and, more importantly, how they make me feel. As long as it make me feel good, and fresh, and closer to my Creator, than I couldn't care less what it's called ... Sally or Fred would do just as well!

In my ebook, "Song Of An Extraordinary Life: Creating A New Soundtrack For Our Third Age," I refer to that time in our lives when we have lived through our first two ages - childhood and adult - as our Third Age, a time when we have raised our kids, paid our dues, and have decades ahead of us to create our own ideas of what life should be. While I have put a name to the concept, I certainly wouldn't want to be called a "Third Ager," any more than I want to be known as a Boomer. In the chapter titled, "The Way You Do The Things You Do," I talk about the idea that who I am is who I decide to say I am. Referring to myself as a mother, daughter, sister, friend, etc., describes roles that I play in the lives of those around me, but the last time I was discussing this idea with a group of people and they asked me what I would want to be called, I replied, "Barb." There is only one Barb exactly like me and she can be and do anything she sets her sights on. Danish philosopher Kierkegaard said, "Once you name me, you negate me." Once you lump me in a category, you limit my potential.

So it doesn't matter what age I am, or what generation I belong to. Just like that pretty yellow flower in my garden whose name I don't know, as long as I live my authentic life and all that entails for me, the name Barb will do just fine, thank you very much.

And so it is.
P.S. The ebook that I mention above, Song Of An Extraordinary Life, is available at Amazon.com. In it I challenge the women of my generation to make use of our experience changing the cultural norms and create a Third Age that rocks!

Learning To Ring Your Own Bell

Lately I've been working on being more flexible. I don't mean just being flexible in a physical sense, although as the years go by I find that moving my body more is a must if I want to maintain my quality of life. What I mean is that I really thought that, as I traveled along on my spiritual journey these last 25 years or so, I had finally gotten rid of all those limiting beliefs and negative self-talk that had kept me so rigid and unhappy for most of my life. However, I find that I am one of those people who can easily exchange one limiting belief for another without even knowing it and before you can say, "but I have to," I am stuck right back in old habits.

I have always been someone who believes that if someone I admire, like a meditation teacher, or a favorite author, says that I should do something a certain way, I blindly accept that they probably know better than I do (or they wouldn't be my favorites, right?) so I should do it the way they suggest. When someone says something that "rings true" for me, I automatically accept it as gospel. For example, I am a follower of the meditation teacher Davidji. He tells us that we should meditate first thing in the morning upon rising. Most days I can do this, but when my granddaughter comes to spend the weekend, or an early morning appointment comes up and I have to skip it, I admonish myself all day. I feel out of sorts and verbally beat myself up with things like, "well, you could have gotten up earlier and done it before she woke up, or before you had breakfast." The same is true with my writing. For years I firmly believed that I had to write in the morning because all of the so-called experts, many of whom have truly helped my writing, insisted that writing first thing and setting a firm writing time was the only way I would get anything done (so do I meditate first and then write, or vice versa, and do I really have to get something done every day?).

What I did not stop to think about was that the only expert I should be taking advice from is me. I am the expert when it comes to what works for me and what doesn't. I should be ringing my own bell. Right now we are coming into my very favorite time of the year and I am blessed to be living in an area where I can experience it in all of its glory. Maybe I'd like to meditate during a morning walk, or after I get back from it - and isn't walking a form of meditation, after all? Maybe on days where the outdoors calls to me, I can work at my desk in the afternoon and use the morning to spiritually feed my muse? And maybe, just maybe, I don't have to do anything at all except only those things that make me happy and allows me to be the greatest idea of myself that I can be in that moment. Wouldn't my spirit, mind, body and muse benefit more from my being in a state of happiness and gratitude that only I am responsible for rather than someone who doesn't even know me and what my life is about?

The bottom line here is that we need to learn to trust ourselves more. We know what makes us happy. We know what feeds our soul. We know what rings our bell. We just have to learn to ring it more often.

And so it is.

P.S. As we approach the Third Anniversary of Flower Bear's Garden, we are offering our e-book, "Staying Rooted: Living and Growing Through the Seasons Of Our Lives," for only .99 cents from September 16-22. This is our way to say thank you for your support. Sit back and enjoy a year in the garden as we plant and grow our authentic lives. Just go to the Flower Bear Facebook Page and hit the "Shop Now" button, or go to the link on this page to Amazon: amazon.com/dp/B00M8CBWTQ. Happy Reading and thank you!

Taking Care Of Business

I saw an interesting article the other day in OM Times by Simone Milasas. She talked about the fact that we are all entrepreneurs because we all ran a business - our life is our business. It was an interesting concept. If I ran my life like a business, what business principles could I apply to my life?

 First and foremost, I believe that a business that thrives, rather than just survives, knows that their employees are their most important assets and treats them accordingly. That would mean that in order for my business (my life) to thrive, I would need to treat myself with respect, dignity and gratitude for the work I do every day, and be understanding when I'm having a bad day or things don't work out the way I want them to. I would want my boss (me) to help me to feel inspired and encourage me to stretch myself beyond my comfort zones, to reach for new ideas and possibilities.

Second, I would want my employees to be in good shape. An employee who is tired or stressed all the time is not going to be able to give me their best. I would make sure that I am well rested, make healthy eating choices that fuel me rather than deplete me, and I would make sure to get up from the desk and move more often, even to making sure I get some extended exercise during the day.

Third, in order to do my best, I would make time every day for meditation, contemplation, and nourishing my spirit. All of my inspiration and creativity comes from spirit, and spending time in nature, or in meditation, or both, keeps me focused and on task. Spending time in my garden before or after work, or even meditating outside when weather permits, is like fueling a car with high test - it gets those creative juices flowing!

Come to think of it, I would need a really spiffy name for my business. Let's see, Barb's Life is okay but not very catchy. How about ... Flower Bear's Garden: Planting A Life? Perfect!

Happy Labor Day!
And so it is.

Finding the Right Angle

I love to meditate. Establishing an ongoing meditation practice is probably the most important and most satisfying thing I've done to change my life. I meditate every morning for at least 30 minutes and it sets the tone for my whole day. It also helps me to clear away the cobwebs and go deep to find the real "me" that is buried under all of the personas that are perceived by others: Mom, Grandma, Sister, Friend, student, etc. When I am in touch with who I really am, the quality of my life improves.

I also try to incorporate a lesson every morning, most often by listening to a guided meditation with my favorite meditation teacher, Davidji. The other day he talked about how sometimes we set an intention to achieve our vision only to be upset or confused when that vision doesn't show up the way we thought it would, or the way we wanted it to. He said that when that happens, it is helpful to meditate on the desire for clarity. Often all we really need is to look at our vision from a different angle to see the perfection of the form it came in. So I closed my eyes, took a few deep breaths, and meditated on the word "clarity" for 30 minutes. What came up were the words gratitude, acceptance and awake.

Gratitude: I am grateful beyond words that I am living the life I always wanted, in a place I love, doing what makes me happy, and surrounded by so much beauty it sometimes makes my heart hurt. Am I exactly where my vision said I would be? No. My vision was to return to the little town I had lived in before, where there are sidewalks, and stores you can walk to, and a village green with a gazebo just like in the movies. Where I ended up was 2 1/2 miles outside of town in the country with no sidewalks, no stores, and cows for neighbors, but I wouldn't trade those killer sunsets for anything, nor would I trade the smell of green fields and plowed dirt in the early morning mist, or the birdsong that serenades me while I write.

Acceptance: I accept that the lifestyle I chose will not make me rich, nor will it even make me comfortable by society's standards, but I am happy, I have everything I need, and all that I really need anyway are the things of the soul, like contentedness, peace, integrity, authenticity and love. I also accept that with the absence of a vehicle for a while, I must learn to ask for help, something I have not been very good at for most of my life, but a lesson I've needed to learn, and to be okay with it as well. Accepting what is can be a most humbling experience.

Awake: When I stopped long enough to see what I did have instead of what I didn't have anymore, I began to see more amazing things then I could have imagined. No, the garden of my dreams did not materialize, but how awesome to watch wildflowers pop up in unexpected places, as beautiful as any in the garden shop, or to see a spider spinning the most beautiful art that shone with crystals when the morning sun shone on the dew drenched web. Being awake to what was right in front of me let me see that Mother Nature had everything in hand, thank you very much, and it was okay for me to just sit back and enjoy it without thinking I could improve on it.

The thing about clarity is that by looking at my vision from a different angle, I could see that all the things that I truly wanted were gifts for my soul and they came in the forms that my soul could recognize instead of my monkey mind. Those gifts have translated into a new direction for my writing, and a new "clarity" for my work as well as my home. It's like having an early Christmas. As my greatest teacher once taught: "When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." That goes for our lives as well as for our gardens.

And so it is.
P.S. This blog post is dedicated to the memory of my beloved teacher, Dr.Wayne Dyer, who left us all too soon.

What if ...?

I was talking with a friend recently about all of the changes that have occurred in my inner life as a result of my having moved back out to the country. Nothing has worked out exactly as I had planned, but, then, what does? Somewhere it is written that when man plans, God laughs. Sometimes we don't get exactly what we want, we get what we need (I think the Rolling Stones sang about that). What I needed was to be physically and spiritually in the place that my heart could call home. All the other things, like discovering I actually like the "new" country music, that I can spend a Sunday afternoon sitting outside just listening to the silence and being okay with that, were unexpected gifts. What I also discovered along the way was that those things I am passionate about or committed to have nothing to do with where I live geographically, but where I live spiritually. So I began to wonder: "What if I had grown up in the country from the beginning? What if I had been raised as a good old country girl? Would I still be me?

I think the words, "What If," are the two most powerful words in the English language. "What if" has been the prerequisite for some of the world's most important discoveries and inventions. They have given birth to art, music, science, and humanity's greatest potential realized. Every new idea or invention started out with "what if?" They have also been the lead in to every fear and excuse not to pursue our dreams and make those discoveries: "What if I fail? What if I'm not good enough? What if people laugh at me? What if I'm wrong?"

I started thinking about all the things that are important to me. If I had been raised in the country, would I still be a vegan? Would I have gone through all of the heartache and longing that colored the majority of my adult life to be somewhere else, someone else? Would I have become a writer anyway and would it have happened sooner? Or did I require all of the experiences and color of the life I lived in order for me to recognize happiness and joy when I found it? What if I had not fallen last summer and fractured my leg, requiring me to find a home without stairs, and what if my friend did not just "happen" to have the perfect place available in the exact place where I wanted to live? What if I stopped asking what if and gave thanks instead for what is?

I think perhaps that it's not so much the words "What If" as it is the words that follow. They are the modifiers that turn "What If" into an adventure that gives us a peek at our own greatness and all that we can be. If we can say "What If" and feel that twinge of excitement at the pit of our stomachs that tell us we're on the right track, then it doesn't matter what came before, only what is in front of us.

What if I get this blog posted and go outside to watch the starlings soar and play instead of doing the laundry?

And so it is.

Sounds and Memories

The other day I was taking advantage of a cool, rainy day to get some freshly picked produce ready for the freezer. The first pickings from my garden and my friends' garden were ready to be cleaned, blanched and packed in freezer bags and containers.

One of the things I love about living here is the absence of outside noise except for the occasional hay or milk truck, the sounds of birds and a dog barking in the distance. This allows you to use all of your senses to be more present to what you are doing, which is exactly what happened while I was cleaning and snapping some freshly picked green beans. Sitting at the kitchen table, newspaper spread on the table, I snapped away. I heard each and every snap, heard the pieces hit the inside of the metal colander where I tossed them, and was suddenly transported back over 50 years to a summer day much like this one except the sun was shinning and I was sitting outside with my mother helping her clean and snap some beans for supper. I was able to see her as clearly as if she were sitting right across from me. She had on a sleeveless, cotton summer dress with a belt and two pockets, over which she wore a full flowered print apron. Her wavy brown hair was held back with bobby pins (remember them?). We each had a brown paper bag on our laps that was torn open with a pile of green beans nestled on it, and a metal colander just like the one I had on the ground between us. Every once in a while one of us would say something, but for the most part we sat in companionable silence except for that snapping sound and the tinging of the beans hitting the metal where we tossed them. I knew that these green beans would end up being part of one of her favorite summertime dishes which was boiled green beans and potatoes that were then steamed with garlic and oil, left to cool, and splashed with a little wine vinegar, a delicious summer veggie salad. I could almost taste the garlicky beans in my mouth and it actually started to water.

It is amazing how often a sound or a smell will trigger a memory of someone we love. My mother always wore Jean Nate' bath splash and to this day the smell reminds me of her. But it is the sounds and smells of the kitchen that transport me back to those days of my childhood that stand out the most. Maybe it's because they represent all that is safe and secure, the way I felt as a child when my mom was in the kitchen whipping up her magic and knowing at that moment that all was right with the world. How I wish I had turned out to be half the cook that she was so that I could have created those same feelings for my kids and grandkids, but I realized as I sat there snapping those beans the other day that each of us is charged with creating our own special memories, not borrowing someone else's and making them our own. My grandkids are more apt to remember me when they visit a garden center, or a book store, or smell coffee brewing, or touch a skein of yarn. Whatever it is, I hope it makes them feel as warm and fuzzy (and weepy, actually) as I was listening to beans snapping under my fingers.

And so it is.

... and the wisdom to know the difference

I have always loved the Serenity Prayer. It is simple, to the point, and from the deepest places of the heart:
   
     God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
     Courage to change the things I can,
     And the wisdom to know the difference.

I pull from this prayer whenever I am up against a situation that challenges me to change the way I perceive it and find a better way to deal with it. A case in point is my long awaited chance to garden again. Twenty-three years ago, I found gardening, or, I should say, gardening found me, and it became my greatest teacher. When I had to leave it in order to be closer to where the jobs were, I grieved as if I had lost a best friend. For fifteen years I found ways to stay connected to the earth and the lessons that gardening taught me by learning to container garden. Even if all I had was a window sill, as long as I could put my hands in dirt and watch life unfolding before me, I continued to grow. Yet I never stopped yearning for my old garden. I remembered being out there in the early morning when the grass was still wet and the weeding went easier. I remembered listen to the good-morning music of the birds and the signal to the bees that it was time to get to work. In my mind, everything about it stayed the same. Alas, it may have been that way in my dreams, but in reality there was one thing that had changed greatly ... me, or, I should say, my body.

I have always been proud of the fact that I kept in relatively good shape for my age. I abused my body terribly in my youth but made great progress towards changing that as I hit my 50's. I dropped 62 pounds. I took up yoga. I leaned to meditate. I went to a gym. I make walking my basic mode of transportation. I started to eat healthier. I lived in a third-floor walk-up apartment and got more exercise carrying groceries and laundry up and down those stairs than I got on a treadmill at the gym. All that came in handy last summer when I sustained a fall on a cracked piece of street and fractured my upper leg/hip area, requiring three pins, and my shoulder as well. All that I had done to keep myself healthy helped me to recover my mobility much more quickly than I would have without it. Even the doctor and the physical therapists marveled that I was mobile so quickly. Mobile, yes. Able to do everything I did before, not really. In fact, some things are still too painful even after a year, One of those things is large-scale gardening.

So imagine finally getting your dream of the last 15 years fulfilled when a place opens up that has a garden you can play in, and finding out that one hour of weeding and planting knocks you off your game for days afterwards. This garden in sloped which puts more strain on the joints, and you realize that it's not just the area affected by the fall, but that while you've been praying for 15 years for a garden, and even though you hiked up and down those stairs all that time, you still got older, and arthritis found you anyway. So now you have to pull out that Serenity Prayer, and look those words in the face, and find the courage to change what you can while accepting what is. There is wisdom in accepting what you cannot change, because once you accept it, other possibilities have the room to grow... like all that wisdom you gained container gardening all of those years. Yes, you can grow lettuce and tomatoes in pots ... and I am. Yes, the herbs will like the outside shelving that holds all of the pots of basil, and lavender, and parsley, and mint ... and love. Yes, you can still go out early in the morning to pull the weeds you can reach without straining, and listen to the birds sing the day awake, and watch the bees go to work. It was never really about the garden. It was about me.

Another saying, probably my all-time favorite, and one I have used here on more than one occasion, is this one: Bloom where you're planted. So I have. That's something I have the courage, and the wisdom, to change

And so it is.