Mending Fences

With the return of Spring, finally, I am enjoying getting back out there for my daily walks. I especially like to stroll through the neighborhood on the weekends so I can watch folks getting their yards ready for the season. Yesterday I saw one man tending to some damage from last month's late season snow storm. He was mending a fence that had broken under the weight of the snow and some fallen tree branches. Fence mending is an important aspect of gardening. It keeps the critters out and provides something for climbing plants to cling to. It also supports larger bushes and shrubs as they grow. Yep, fence mending is a very important job.

Watching that man reminded me of something I'd seen online last week. It was a video of a little girl about 5 years old who was explaining why it was important to be nice to people. She said that if you're mean to people you might: "break their feelings." I found that phrase to be very profound coming from one so young. I'm sure she'd heard grown-ups talking about not "hurting" some one's feelings, but "breaking" some one's feelings puts a different twist on it, because it follows that if you break something you need to fix it as well.

More often than not most of us do not set out to hurt some one's feelings. We may blurt something out without thinking, or react to our own hurt without considering all the innocent bystanders. Especially in these days of social media, it is easier to put something out there that is intended to inform or explain, but ends up being hurtful to someone who doesn't know your story and can't see your face or hear your tone when you say it. When we realize that we've "broken some one's feelings," we need to dig into our spiritual tool box and do some fence mending.

So what do you have in your tool box? Honesty, apology, love, understanding, consideration, putting yourself in the other's shoes, compassion, empathy? So many tools are at our disposal if we just take the time to admit our mistake, take responsibility for it, and mend those fences. If a well-mended fence can help support the plants in the garden, how much stronger can this garden that we call life grow?

I think I'll take another walk around the block and see how that man is making out. Maybe he can use some help.

And so it is.

Letting The Beauty In

I found this quote in a book the other day:

“As we age the beauty steals inward.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

What a lovely thought that is. I’ve heard of things getting better with age, like fine wine, but beautiful? Now where have I come across this idea before? Of course, where else? In the garden!

I’ve watched a new young sapling struggling to stay upright to become a canopy of luscious greens in spring and summer, and brilliant reds and golds in autumn – but only after years and years of earning its beauty through harsh winter storms. I’ve seen daffodils push through the early spring soil and give us our first colors of the season year after year, but only after they have paid their winter dues as well. As I write this, my eyes look out of the window and fixate on the huge pine tree that sits on the other side of the house next door. I cannot even begin to guess at its height … 50, 60 feet? More? How old must that tree be? Yet it is the first thing I look at when I wake up and hear the neighborhood birds singing in a new day in its branches, and watch Gus, the squirrel, scampering up its trunk for breakfast. It’s also the last thing I see as the sun sets in a blaze of glory behind it, casting it in a huge, magnificent shadow. It was cute when it was little, but it is beautiful in its old age.

So here is another lesson for all of us from the garden: we all get more beautiful as we age. We become more real, more of who we really are. Our beauty is honed from the trials and tribulations of life, and polished to perfection by experience and wisdom. It shines out from our spirits, through our eyes, and our smiles, and our gestures of love. The more winters we learn to survive, the more springs we bloom with gratitude, and gratitude is a beautiful thing, wouldn’t you agree?

And so it is.

I found this quote in a book the other day:

“As we age the beauty steals inward.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

What a lovely thought that is. I’ve heard of things getting better with age, like fine wine, but beautiful? Now where have I come across this idea before? Of course, where else? In the garden!

I’ve watched a new young sapling struggling to stay upright become a canopy of lucious greens in spring and summer, and brilliant reds and golds in autumn – but only after years and years of earning its beauty through harsh winter storms. I’ve seen daffodils push through the early spring soil and give us our first colors of the season year after year, but only after they have paid their winter dues as well. As I write this, my eyes look out of the window and fixate on the huge, huge pine tree that sits on the other side of the house next door. I cannot even begin to guess at its height … 50, 60 feet? More? How old must that tree be? Yet it is the first thing I look at when I wake up and hear the neighborhood birds singing in a new day in its branches, and watch Gus, the squirrel, scampering up its trunk for breakfast. It’s also the last thing I see as the sun sets in a blaze of glory behind it, casting it in a huge, magnificent shadow. It was cute when it was little, but it is beautiful in its old age.

So here is another lesson for all of us from the garden: we all get more beautiful as we age. We become more real, more of who we really are. Our beauty is honed from the trials and tribulations of life, and polished to perfection by experience and wisdom. It shines out from our spirits, through our eyes, and our smiles, and our gestures of love. The more winters we learn to survive, the more springs we bloom with gratitude, and gratitude is a beautiful thing, wouldn’t you agree?

And so it is.

Just My Cup of Tea

I was so excited the other day when I came across an article about growing your own indoor tea garden. Growing tea indoors? How cool is that? I love tea, all different flavors and herbal concoctions, but I have always loved a simple Earl Grey in the afternoon to help me to slow down and practice some mindfulness before the day gets away from me. Having had to learn to grow just about everything in pots and containers as an apartment dweller, I was sure that if I could pull off lettuce and tomatoes indoors, I could pull this off as well.

Further reading led me to the discovery that all teas - black, white and green tea - all come from the same species of plant. Their differences in color and taste come from how the leaves are processed. Excellent! As I kept on reading the instructions as to seeds vs cuttings, correct soil, pots, exposure to sunlight, watering, and feeding, I became even more excited. I was sure I could do this ... until I came to the last sentence: "After three years, when your plant is mature, you can harvest and process your own tea." Three years? I would actually have to nurse and nurture these plants for three years before I could harvest the leaves? That's a awfully long time to wait for a cup of tea! The real question is not can I do it? Of course, I can do it. I am, after all, the Queen of Indoor Gardening. No, the real questions is, am I willing to put in the time, money and effort - and patience - to have to wait three years for results?

I thought back to a time when I was about 12 years old. I had seen a pair of dress shoes that I just had to have. They were shiny black patent leather with a bow on the toe and 2 1/2" wine glass shaped heels, all the rage at the time. When I told my mother, she absolutely refused to buy them for me. First, she explained, they were just too expensive. Second, they were too old for me. I was not ready for 2 1/2" heels ... "You'll break your neck," she said. Disappointed, I decided that I was willing to do anything to have those shoes, so I started saving up all of my allowance for the next two months. I even offered to do the dishes when it was my sister's turn in exchange for some extra cash. The day finally came after two long and very hard months of waiting when I proudly took myself to the local shoe store and bought the shoes. They were beautiful. What happened? Well, yes, I almost broke my neck in them, although practicing in my room helped after a while. Actually, once I got the hang of it, I discovered that heels that high, and soles that flimsy would actually end up killing your feet after a few hours. None of that mattered, however. Here was something I had done on my own, with my own money, sacrificing everything to achieve my goal. When you're 12, two months is a life time. So what's three years to brew a cup of tea I can proudly tell people: "I grew this myself!"

It's not the time, or the money, or the energy that we put out in order to achieve something. It's the feeling that the important things in life, the things that give us a sense of fulfillment, are worth waiting for, and worth working for. Why? Because we're worth it. We're worth the finest cup of tea we can grow, or the shiniest pair of shoes we can buy. We're worth living our lives on our terms, doing what makes us happy, and at whatever pace we choose. After all, happiness, like money, doesn't grow on trees ... for me, it grows on little bushes in pots!

And so it is.

Growing Wisdom

Perennial - Lasting for an indefinitely long time; persistent; enduring; regularly repeated or renewed

I discovered a passion for gardening late in life, in my late 40s and early 50s. I had always loved being outside in nature, communing with the birds and squirrels, helping my mother pick roses and lilacs from the yard and arranging them in vases, and marveling at how no matter what happened during the course of the year, from frigid winters to baking summers, these beautiful flowers always came back.

The best piece of gardening advice that I ever received was to make perennials the backbone of the garden, adding annuals, shrubs and foliage for variety and change. Perennials, I was told, were enduring, just like their advice. Gardening wisdom comes from years and years of trial and error, along with back-breaking and sometimes heart-breaking work. It isn't something that you can grow over night. You have to plant the seeds and see what comes back and what doesn't. You have to be persistent if you want to be renewed.

Wisdom is also something that has to grow over the years through trial and error, sunshine as well a storms, and lots and lots of experience. Remember when we heard our parents say things like: "Wait until you grow up and then you'll understand," or, "wait until you have children of your own and then you'll know what I'm talking about." And wait we did, often not patiently, but in the end that was the only way to see what worked and what didn't, what was true for us and what wasn't, and what endured. With persistence and the ability to tear out what wasn't growing and replace it with those things that would endure, we grew in wisdom and, just like the garden, we were regularly renewed.

One piece of wisdom that has recently blossomed in my wisdom garden is that there are things I have come to understand about my life that I could not possibility have understood or accepted until I had moved into my Third Age, my wisdom years. I had to keep walking up and down the paths, planting and pulling weeds, until the pattern of my life emerged and I saw the Big Picture. Do I wish I had known what I know now when I was younger? Sure. Would I have understood it the way that I do now? Not likely. I had to live it, and live it I did.

As our 3 feet of snow starts to melt, I say a little prayer each morning to those beautiful perennials that lay sleeping underneath it all, asking them to hold on just a little longer and rely on their inner wisdom to tell them when to push through to the top. That's how they endure, by knowing when it's time to be who they are meant to be. I think that's true for all of us, don't you?

And so it is.

A Blanket, A Pot of Soup, and Clear Water

I give up! I am throwing up my hands and giving up! I would wave a white flag of surrender, but it would probably blow away!

After a week of wind storms with downed trees, power lines and flying trash cans, followed by record-breaking, bitter cold in the single digits with below zero wind chills, the icing on the cake (or on us, as it were) is coming tonight and for the next 48 hours in the form of a real nor'easter, promising at least a foot of snow and 40 mph wind gusts. Oh, joy! So I surrender, and I am here to tell you that despite what you may have been taught, surrender is not always a bad thing.

Surrender does not always mean that you lose and the other guy wins. It doesn't mean that you are weak, or a failure, or not enough. Sometimes surrender means accepting the present moment for what it is, understanding that we do not control everything in life, let alone the whole world, and that there are times when it is wiser and more courageous to wait until, as Lao Tzu tells us: "...your mud settles and the water is clear?" I don't have any control over the weather. It is March in the Northeast section of the country which means anything from 70 degrees and sunny to minus 4 temperatures and snow storms. It is what it is. Instead of wailing about it and wishing for spring, it better serves me and my well being to let my mud settle until my water is clear. In other words, spring will get here when it gets here.

The same holds true of surrendering to other things we have no control over, like the actions of another person. Ranting and raving, and pointing fingers, does nothing to change that person, and it does not allow us to see things clearly. By surrendering to what is and giving ourselves the room to let our water clear, we can see the bigger picture and make our plans for new and better times ahead. All we need to do is be willing to let go.

So today I will fight the crowds at the store to pick up some milk and other items "just in case," and then retire to my old rocking chair with a warm blanket, a pot of soup on the stove, and the big, fat novel I picked up at the library book sale last week. Let the winds blow, the snow come down and winter, hopefully, finally, blow itself out. When my mud settles and my water clears, I'll get back out there again!

And so it is.

Starting From Seed

I am inside today recovering from a brutal day yesterday of frigid temperatures in the teens, high wind warnings and a wind chill of -2! The wind has finally subsided but we woke to 10 degrees this morning with a promise of "maybe" 30 by afternoon. So what does any hardy woman born and raised in the northeast do on such a day? She puts up a pot of soup ... and starts planting seeds!

Yes, you heard right: Planting Seeds. No, not outside, of course. I doubt highly that I could even get a hoe or a spade into the frozen ground right now. I'm talking about getting my little peat pots and cartons laid out and ready to fill with luscious, organic soil from a bag into which I will either poke a hole and insert one seed, or sprinkle the really tiny ones over the top and lightly cover with a thin layer of soil. A little misting to wet them in, pop them on a sunny window sill or under a light and, Voila!"  In a few weeks, little green sprouts will start to poke up through the soil. By the time the ground warms up enough to receive them, my little plants will be a few inches tall and hardy enough to establish themselves in the new garden which, this year, will be at my daughter's house. My new apartment is way too little with no porch or balcony to house even a container garden, and my daughter's yard is in dire need of help (alas, she did not inherit her mother's green thumb ... more like a black one ... but thankfully both of her daughters did). I get to create a whole new garden and I get free labor to boot! How awesome is that?

Growing a garden from seed is not for everyone. It takes a lot of work, lots of planning, as many wins as there are loses, and, above all, faith and patience. Anyone can go buy an already established plant from a store and pop it in the ground, but you miss out on the beautiful experience of watching the birth of life from its beginnings. Just like humans, a plant starts from a seed, and with love and patience it grows, sometimes painfully slow and not without its setbacks and disappointments.

No one comes into this world knowing everything and knowing how to do everything. You can't go to a human store and buy an already established person to plop down in your home who will know how best to run your life and the lives of your family. It would be nice, but it has been my experience that the best way to learn something is by starting small, starting simply, and taking my time. Yes, I will make mistakes. Yes, I will sometimes have to rip it out and start over, but I will be all the wiser for having done so. It is in our setbacks and supposed failures that real growth takes root.

I know that starting a brand new garden in a brand new place will be a challenge. I have no idea what the soil is like, what kind of drainage it has and how the sun moves across the plot from sunrise to sundown. These are all things I will have to learn. Some things may have to be grown in large pots or raised beds until the soil has been amended and I know what will grow best there. Just like in life, we won't know if we can do something until we try, and then try again; but we'll never know unless we're willing to dig in and get our hands dirty.

As for me, I'm starting small, with herbs, lettuces, beans and the easy stuff. We'll see what Mother Nature has in store for me as the season progresses. For now, it's enough to start from seed and see what blossoms.

And so it is.

Flying Through The Rain

The feature that sold me on my new apartment was the large window right where my desk was destined to go. It gives me a lovely view of the row of houses on this sweet little block as well as trees galore and the rolling hills in the distance. Even more spectacular than that is the huge vista of sky that opens up in endless wonder. There is a regional airport a few blocks down for small aircraft only. Every day I get to see private aircraft, both planes with props and helicopters, land and take off, making great, sweeping turns before me. However, it is not the miracle of man-made flight that captures my heart. It is the endless performances of Mother Nature's natural pilots, the birds, that fascinates me the most.

Day after day, in all sorts of weather, I see the parade of my winged relations going about their lives. I see them play, hunt for food, perform aerial ballet, and often make me wish I could be up there with them. I think the one thing that amazes me the most about them, however, is to watch them when the weather turns from sun and open sky to rain and wind. While the planes down the road are grounded, these creatures, some of them weighing hardly more than a few ounces or a pound at the most, put their heads down and fly into the storm. They have somewhere to be, and something to do, and in most cases their lives or the lives of their little ones depends on them. I saw such a display the other day. The rain was coming down in sheets and the wind was howling ... and a very determined crow was flapping for all he was worth, making his way across the sky to what ever destination was calling to him. It was the most impressive act of grit and courage I have seen in quite some time.

How many of us would have that kind of courage? I don't necessarily mean going out into a literal storm. I am referring to flying through the storms of our lives. When our personal storms are howling all around us, how many of us can say that we can put our heads down and fly into the eye of the storm to get to where we need to be? What calls to us to perform this kind of spiritual feat? It is the knowledge that, if we can just hang on and make it through to the other side, sunshine awaits us. On the other side of the storms of our lives is the peace that we desire. If we have faith that even in nature, no storm can last forever, we can put out our wings and ride the wind to a new day and a new beginning. Believe in yourself and in the power of your spiritual "Co-Pilot." Even if your wings grow tired, your Co-Pilot can carry you the rest of the way.

This morning I am watching a battle between a big crow and a little squirrel over a piece of stale, discarded bread. As much as I love squirrels, my money is on the crow!

And so it is.