To Market, To Market

On Saturday I got to do something I've been dying to do for over a year ... took a trip to our local farmer's market! Between recovering from surgeries and being stuck indoors due to COVID, I have been suffering a serious case of farmer's market withdrawal. I was so happy to be back there this weekend that it was right up there with Christmas!

The first thing I noticed when we got there, which was right around the time that they opened, was that the parking lot was already packed with cars. I guess other people were as happy be there as I was. Then I remembered that this market had their 5th anniversary celebration on Friday which was shown on the local news, so perhaps more people were interested in checking it out. Once I started walking around, however, I noticed a few things that caught my attention. First, absolutely everything that was for sale was organic or made from organic ingredients, from the beautiful, big squash and luscious looking strawberries to the health and beauty products like soaps make from goat's milk and herbal tinctures. The baked goods, my personal favorites, were fresh and contained no preservatives or GMO's. The meat was pasture raised, and there were more plants for sale, especially vegetable and herbs, than I remembered. The other thing I noticed was the crowd itself. I listened to folks talking with each other about how the pandemic had given them an opportunity to delve into the world of healthier eating, growing their own food, and learning about natural alternatives to health care products. I am certainly not one to put labels on folks, but you could tell the dyed-in-the-wool, old-time naturalists from the newbies! I felt encouraged as I watched and listened to people experiencing the fruits of nature for the first time and saw them embrace the idea that they really did have a choice in how they wanted to live their lives.

Another thing I noticed was that the crop of early vegetables looked beyond healthy for so early in the growing season. That's when I found out that some vendors and farmers had spent the time in isolation using green houses and other indoor gardening options to grow their produce while waiting for the start of the outdoor growing season up here which is usually a little behind our neighbors to the south and west. What a joy to know that we can now have fresh produce all year long and it will all be organic and as close to nature as possible. 

Every so often something good comes out of something bad. A fire can encourage new growth in a forest, and a pandemic can grow a new crop of people who want to take charge of their lives and change the way we think of food and health in this country. I am not suggesting that this horrible virus and the sorrow it has caused thousands of people was a good thing, but, thank heaven, some good things have come out of it. Perhaps we will finally start looking at how we live our lives a bit more closely, and start taking control of what we eat and where it comes from. This could be the start of a less consumer-oriented world and one that is founded on living our very best, and healthiest, lives.

And so it is.  

Window On The World

Happy Summer Solstice! As we celebrate the first official full day of summer, I decided to get up just as the sun was coming up this morning to see how Mother Nature and all of her children would greet this day. So I got myself a cup of coffee, pulled back the curtains, and looked out of my window to find the small, often unnoticed morning rituals of my non-human neighbors. So, when I looked out of my window this morning, I saw:

• ... what looked like a dozen tiny insect bodies suspended in mid-air until I looked more closely. As the morning light illuminated the space, I saw a beautifully intricate spider web, so thin and transparent that I couldn't see it even though it was right up against the window pane. Looking at the perfection of this web, I could well understand how the Native American weavers I met told me that Grandmother Spider taught them how to weave their beautiful textiles. 
• ... a terribly confused bumble bee who kept hovering right outside the window as he tried to figure out how to get to the plants that were behind the glass on my window sill. I have to applaud his tenacity as he tried every nook, cranny, and seam in the window but finally had to admit defeat and take off to find easier plants to pollinate.
• ... a stunning male cardinal in brilliant red plumage sitting in the little tree out front and calling out endlessly into the air trying to find his beloved mate. After several minutes of this romantic love song, there in the distance a similar cry floated out to him from the other side of the yard. Our colorful Romeo took off in a flurry of feathers!
• ...  small wisps of left-over morning fog that had settled in the small valleys among the trees on the distant hillside. It looked like someone had put them there deliberately to decorate for Christmas.
• ... a very small squirrel who found a way to outsmart the gang of grackles that were always after him by hiding in the row of small trees that act as a hedge between the properties. He finally darted  out and up the pine tree when they couldn't find him and went off to terrorize some other animal (who knew there was so much drama at dawn?).
• ... a beautiful bird that I've never seen before, something like a dove or pigeon, that was all snow white except for some black markings scattered on its back like splattered ink. It came to rest on the rooftop of a house nearby and sat patiently until it's partner showed up. Then they took off in what looked like a sweeping, soaring air ballet.
• ... and, or course, the light, the beautiful morning light, as it moved up and across the sky touching each tree, plant and animal as if with a magic wand to birth a brand new day.

How much we miss when we don't take the time to greet the day. How wonderful it feels to be a part of Mother Nature's plan each morning and allow ourselves to be included in this wonderful, light-filled symphony we call a new day. If nothing else, it serves to remind us of how lucky we are just to be alive!

And so it is. 

A Country State Of Mind

When I was a kid growing up in New York City, all I could think about was how neat it would be to live in the country. I'm not saying that there weren't some definite benefits to living in the Big Apple, far from it. When other kids took school field trips to the dairy, or to watch them make apple cider, I was taking school trips to museums, planetariums, Shakespeare in the Park, The Statue of Liberty and the top of the Empire State Building. Broadway matinees were my reward for making it into the Honors English classes and getting A's. Still .... 

... still, every year I would count the days until summer vacation because that meant I could go and spend a week at my cousins' home out on Long Island. Back then parts of Long Island were still being developed so it was no stretch of the imagination to see a housing development going up within view of a potato or dairy farm. My cousins' Dad loved to garden. In the days when you could carry plants home on a plane from other countries, he would make visits to is family in Italy and come home with cuttings to put in his own garden. There is nothing like the taste of a fresh fig just picked and still warm, or popping a strawberry in your mouth for every one you picked! I got to visit nearby farms where they bought fresh produce and eggs. Every morning I would wake up just as the sun was coming up and sit by the window watching the birds and the animals greet the day. All I could think of was how wonderful it would be to live there forever. Back home all I had was a small yard with a few trees and rose bushes to pretend in. This was the real thing. It spoke to my soul. It wrapped itself around my heart. It felt like home.

Fast forward 30 years or so. The longing never left me even though I had to live where there was work to be had and a living to be made as I raised two beautiful daughters pretty much on my own. Now the nest was empty and my younger sister, who had moved to the country with her family, was enticing me to join her there. What could I do but say yes? Who says dreams don't come true. It's been 28 years and I've never regretted one minute of it.

I truly believe that the desire to live in the country is something we're born with. It's in our blood. It calls to us. Even as a little kid playing in our small city yard, nature called to me. The trees whispered their secrets, the squirrels taught me how to save for a rainy day, and the ants instilled in me the importance of being a team player. The plants taught me how to embrace each season, and the when I touched the ground between the blades of grass, I "felt the heartbeat of God," to borrow a line from the poem "Renascence" by Edna St Vincent Millay. Now I wake to a chorus of birdsong I could not hear in the city above the noise. I experience the seasons up close and personal. I smell the scents of pine trees outside my window, and watch the antics of the baby squirrels each spring as they try to find their footing in the world. I cheer the geese each year as they honk their way across the sky on their way home after spending the winter in warmer climates, and marvel at magnificent sunsets that are hidden behind skyscrapers in the city. This old "child of the 60's rock and roller" even loves country music!

So here is a piece of advice from someone who waited almost 40 years to follow her dream: life is too short to wait that long. Follow your heart. Listen to what calls to you and don't wait to answer. If it's in your heart, then it's where you are meant to be.

And so it is.

Welcome Summer!

It's finally here! After what seemed like an endless winter, both physically and symbolically, summer finally arrived on a warm, soft breeze under sunny skies last Monday, Memorial Day (at least in my neighborhood).  It couldn't have come at a better time and with so much more meaning, especially this year.

It is only natural after a long winter and an iffy spring to get excited about a day that is known as the Official First Day Of Summer. Sometimes the real meaning behind Memorial Day is lost as so many folks look forward to the first cookout of the season and celebrating the outdoors (I know I did as it was my first official day outside since the surgery). This past year, which was especially hard on everyone, gave us even more reason to celebrate. And yet, the real meaning of Memorial Day was even more profound this year as well. 

We celebrate Memorial Day to remember the brave souls who made the ultimate sacrifice to defend and protect our freedoms. The idea of freedom hit me hard this last 18 months. While I am all about freedom in general, I don't think my personal freedom was ever tested as much as it was during this time. Between two surgeries that kept me home bound, and then being encouraged to stay indoors once I had healed because of the pandemic, the idea of real freedom, the ability to walk out the door whenever I wanted and to go wherever I wanted, was front and center in my life. I can tell you for sure that I will never again take for granted the ability to run across the street for milk, or to go to the library, or to church, or even to treat myself to a lunch out. All those months I had to find solace somewhere to keep myself from going completely crazy. So where would this lover of all things Mother Nature find it? You guessed it ... in my tiny garden.

Plants don't moan and groan about personal freedom. They don't decide not to grow because they can't pick up and move to a better location or take themselves out for a stroll. They don't complain about having to depend on someone else to water and feed them, or to prune them, or to control their access to light and warmth. They just are. They do what plants do without complaint or comparing themselves to others. If ever there were perfect examples of living in the present moment, with mindfulness, it would be the plant world. Can you imagine a tree complaining about having to stand in one spot for years on end? Nope. Year after year it just does its thing: bloom, put on a show in autumn, lose all it's leaves, stand bare and cold in the winter, and bloom again in spring. It just is, and it does a magnificent job of it, don't you think?

So if there is any lesson I've learned from these last 18 months, it's not to take any of my freedoms for granted, even the little ones like going to the store for milk, but also to know that it's okay to remember to "just be," to take each moment as it comes and, like the plants and trees, to bloom where we are.

And so it is. 

Learning To Let Go

I have to say that in my entire life I have never seen a month of May as crazy as the one that is slowly coming to an end. In the space of a few short weeks we have experienced every season including snow and a heat wave with ten days of each other! Thankfully, this morning we woke to a cooler, more pleasant May with the birds happily soaring about singing their hearts out. Even they haven't been able to summon up much energy when the daytime temperature soared to 91 degrees during the day.

One of the things that struck me as this crazy weather pattern played out was how all of our attention was on how to combat it and make it adhere to our idea of what the weather should be in the month of May. In other words, we were trying to control it. Imagine that! How arrogant are we humans to sit and complain about the weather as if Mother Nature were doing it simply to watch us get frustrated over not being able to be in complete control. While I didn't see any of my animal neighbors actually enjoying the heat/cold/snow/heatwave, except maybe early in the morning or as the sun went down, what I did see was them adjusting their behavior to deal with the constant changes. In other words, they didn't try to control the weather, they just controlled how they experienced it. 

One of the hardest things for a human being to do is to admit that they do not have complete control over something in their lives. While there is certainly nothing wrong with the idea that if you want something badly enough, you just have to believe in yourself and work hard to make it happen, there comes a point when we have to be big enough to just surrender ... just let go. We cannot control the weather any more than we can control which season comes next, or when the sun will rise or set. If the animals can accept life as it comes and adjust their perception and behavior to accommodate the changes, we humans should be able to do the same. 

Learning when to let go of control allows us to grow and flourish without constraints, going with the flow and adjusting our sails as we go. Just like my noisy blue jay neighbors who work me up this morning with the sound of their calling to each other as they played tag in the cool air, we can learn to soar as well!

And so it is.

Good Morning Starshine

Even after all this time the Sun never says to the Earth, "You owe me." Look what happens with a love like that, it lights the whole sky.

Hafiz

For the last week or so I have taken to getting up before dawn and watching the sunrise. Before all the noise of the morning traffic begins, I get my cup of coffee, collect my meditation beads, and position myself in front of the big window over my desk. Although the window faces west, I get to see the first hint of the sun as it rises in the east behind me and begins to cast a golden glow on the hills in the distance. Watching the sun slowly move from the tips of the treetops to the rooftops on the street below is breathtaking. Who needs a mantra. This is meditation at its best.

This morning I was up early enough to catch the geese from a nearby farm as they made their daily trek across the sky to the river a few blocks to the south where they hang out most of the day until dusk when they fly back home. As the sun rose higher in the sky the birds, who had been singing the day awake since before dawn, started doing their morning aerobics. A mother crow with three tiny babies were playing tag in the sky as she cawed at them to pay attention and fly right. My squirrel neighbor tentatively crept out of her hole in the neighbor's roof and went hunting for breakfast. Morning doves came to visit across the way looking for seeds from the pine tree overhead, and a female cardinal came to sit in the little tree out front and sing me a "good morning." 

What is it about watching the sunrise and seeing the day come alive that fills us with hope? Do you think that was Mother Nature's intention, to remind us that no matter what is going on in our lives, the sun will come up every morning and a new day will be presented to us all gift wrapped in promise and possibility? I like to think it was. It has certainly had a positive affect on me. Instead of waking up dreading another day of physical therapy and pain, I wake up eager to watch the birth of the day, the awakening of my animal relations, and the beginning of what could be a new and wonderful day of possibilities. I ask you, what better way could you want to wake up?

And so it is.

New And Improved

Yesterday my #1 Grandchild and her sweet hubby (Grandson-in-law but I call him Grandson anyway) came over to help lift my spirits as the weather continues to be cold, rainy, and most un-springlike. They pulled out my tabletop garden and rearranged it so that I have twice the room I had before. Now there is room for the beautiful birdcage she made me for Christmas that twinkles with fairy lights at night, plus the two new plants I got for Mother's Day - a violet and some succulents. You would have thought that it was Christmas morning and I was 5 years old again for how happy I was with the finished product.

Granddaughter #2, sister to #1 Grandchild, gave me this beautiful garden flag which I have hanging on the front of the table to hide the bin underneath that houses my garden tools, pots, and seeds. The entire corner is a little wonderland with space for the herb plants that I will be starting after Memorial Day. Last year's failed  attempts to plant any earlier up north where I live even with grow lights taught me that the old adage of not planting until Memorial Day is there for a reason!

As I sit here in my apartment and continue my healing and rehab from my hip surgery, I am forever humbled and grateful not only for my family who takes such good care of me, but for the joy that Mother Nature's gifts bring me however small. For me there is more beauty in the creamy pink petals of the violet than in a diamond, and more laughter in the antics of the blue jays outside my window playing tag than any movie or TV show. I recently treated myself to a new pair of binoculars and now can take in the view up close and personal. Who needs livestream and surround sound? I've got it all and it doesn't cost me a cent, just the time I spend enjoying it, time well spent for sure. I call it Mother Nature's medicine and it works just fine.

And so it is.