I read an article not long ago about a woman who said she planted the garden off of her back porch in all white flowers. Her reason for doing so was so she could sit on her porch at night and see her flowers lit up in the moonlight. As lovely an image as that makes when you think about it, my own reaction was that you would only be able to enjoy that for a couple of hours in the evening. There are 24 hours in the day and, as we have just come up on the longest day of the year, I would much rather have a garden that was bursting with color that I could enjoy for the majority of the day, not just a few hours in the evening.
How dull our world would be if everything was a matter of black and white. There would be no golden sunrises filled with promise, no purple and pink sunsets to bid the day goodnight, no lush fields of green, or stalks of plump, yellow corn, or luscious red strawberries on the vine, or a million and one other colorful experiences that would be missing from our lives.
It is much the same in life as it is in nature. To simply survive is to live in a world of black and white, right and wrong, yes and no. To actually live a life is to burst through between the lines and savor all the color and experiences life has to offer. So often we are raised with such a rigid set of rules to live our lives by that we grow up thinking, "well, that's all there is." It reminds me of the movie, "The Wizard of Oz" where Dorothy's life in Kansas is all black and white until she lands in Oz, and then she opens the door to a world alive with color and experiences she could only dream of. Sometimes we have to step back and look around us and ask ourselves if we are just surviving from day to day, or if we are experiencing all that life has to offer. This also includes experiencing all the different people in the world as well. Some of my most memorable and lasting impressions of life have been through the eyes of people of color and different customs. I now cannot imagine my life without the dancing and drumming of my Native American ancestors, or the meditation of my Buddhist brothers and sisters, or the restorative yoga movements learned from my Hindu relations, or the uplifting, heart-bursting gospel music of my Black friends and neighbors. All of these colors, all of these cultures, have colored my experience of life in a palette only God could create. How dull my life would have been without them.
This morning as I worked in my garden, I noticed a spot that was not doing well due to all of the rain we have had lately, a spot that needed some color. So I rummaged through my collection of flower pots (even here I gravitate to colorful designs) and dug up some lavender to put in them, arranging the pots in between the muddy spots. Now while the spot does its best to dry out and, hopefully, be ready for some new plantings, it will still have some color from the greens and purples of that lovely herb. Sometimes even Mother Nature can use some help coloring the world.
And so it is.
Monday, June 22, 2015
Monday, June 15, 2015
Perspective Is Everything
One of the greatest gifts I've been given since moving back to the country was the opportunity to get reacquainted with how life flows out here. It came to me the other day as I was looking out of the kitchen window that if you want to change your perspective on life, just look out of the window. For example:
This was the view from my window in January ... and February ... and March ...
Tulips appeared in the same window in late May, and ...
...look what I found last week when I opened the window ... strawberries!
Someone sent me a quote on Facebook today that said: "People are always fighting over whether the glass is have empty or half full. What they seem to forget is that the glass is refillable." Perspective is everything. What you see today doesn't always have to be what you see tomorrow. It's all in how you look at it.
And so it is.
Monday, June 8, 2015
Writing Your Own Fairy Tales
No horror story can scare us as much as the ones we create ourselves. No one is better at playing the big bad wolf in our own lives than we are. We are the monsters under our own beds or the ones hiding in the closet.
Take yesterday, for example. I have been in a great deal of physical pain for the past few weeks. Of course, throwing myself into my new garden with the abandon of a 20 year old with no thought to the three pins in my upper leg from last year's surgery didn't help. Imagine my surprise when the pain got to the point where even riding in the car to the store was an experiment in torture! Of course, the horror story I told myself was that I had waited all this time to move back home only to be denied my dream because I was probably going to need a whole hip replacement. Not only that, but I would probably never be able to garden again! What was I thinking at my age to go around digging and bending like that? Now for the reality - an ice pack and remembering to do my stretches every day (which of course I wasn't doing), and a little rest, and I was good as new. All I had done was to aggravate my sciatica which I've done before, sometimes by simply bending the wrong way to plug in the sweeper! Nevertheless, I went right for the drama instead of stepping back, taking a breath and assessing the situation for what it was.
The same was true for a meeting that I had to attend. I had already made up my mind that it was going to be stressful and I would probably come home with a splitting headache (to go with the pain in my butt that I already had), Surprise! It turned out to be a very inspirational and gratifying meeting, and I came home filled with hope for the future of my little church group.
So, I've decided to stop writing horror stories and start writing fairy tales. When a stressful event or person crosses my path, instead of always imaging the worst, I can turn on my inner magic wand and change the way I imagine the story ending. The meeting will go well because I will fill the room with love and positive energy, and bless everyone in the room. The pain in the butt can be avoided by doing my stretches, finding less invasive ways to garden that respects my body's limits, and congratulating myself for the beauty that I help to create - okay, Mother Nature does most of the work, but how cool is it that I get to be her helper? What a great fairy tale that would make: Mother Nature's Helper!
So what kind of story are your going to write for yourself today?
And so it is.
Take yesterday, for example. I have been in a great deal of physical pain for the past few weeks. Of course, throwing myself into my new garden with the abandon of a 20 year old with no thought to the three pins in my upper leg from last year's surgery didn't help. Imagine my surprise when the pain got to the point where even riding in the car to the store was an experiment in torture! Of course, the horror story I told myself was that I had waited all this time to move back home only to be denied my dream because I was probably going to need a whole hip replacement. Not only that, but I would probably never be able to garden again! What was I thinking at my age to go around digging and bending like that? Now for the reality - an ice pack and remembering to do my stretches every day (which of course I wasn't doing), and a little rest, and I was good as new. All I had done was to aggravate my sciatica which I've done before, sometimes by simply bending the wrong way to plug in the sweeper! Nevertheless, I went right for the drama instead of stepping back, taking a breath and assessing the situation for what it was.
The same was true for a meeting that I had to attend. I had already made up my mind that it was going to be stressful and I would probably come home with a splitting headache (to go with the pain in my butt that I already had), Surprise! It turned out to be a very inspirational and gratifying meeting, and I came home filled with hope for the future of my little church group.
So, I've decided to stop writing horror stories and start writing fairy tales. When a stressful event or person crosses my path, instead of always imaging the worst, I can turn on my inner magic wand and change the way I imagine the story ending. The meeting will go well because I will fill the room with love and positive energy, and bless everyone in the room. The pain in the butt can be avoided by doing my stretches, finding less invasive ways to garden that respects my body's limits, and congratulating myself for the beauty that I help to create - okay, Mother Nature does most of the work, but how cool is it that I get to be her helper? What a great fairy tale that would make: Mother Nature's Helper!
So what kind of story are your going to write for yourself today?
And so it is.
Monday, June 1, 2015
It Ain't All Sunshine and Flowers, You Know!
It's raining again for the second day in a row. Actually, it started Saturday night when a storm blew in that knocked our power out for over 2 hours before it came back on. Sunday morning I threw on a jacket (the temperature had plunged down to around 53) and rescued the pots of seeds that I had just started on Friday when it had been sunny and 80! I hoped the drenching they got, along with some seedlings I had also planted that day, would not kill them outright, but as my hero, Henry David Thoreau, always says, 'I have faith in a seed."
Talking with an acquaintance about this the other day, she asked me,"Why do you even bother? All that work, all that money invested, and all the strain you're putting on that poor hip of yours (referring to my injury from last summer that still plagues me). All of that can be blown away in a single storm. I don't see what you get out of it." Well, I'll tell you what I get out of it and, of course, my answer will also be a metaphor for our lives (did you really expect that this would just be a post about gardening?).
What I get out of it is the chance to feel as one with the earth and everything on it. I get to be a witness to the miracle of life in all its forms. I get to watch a seed become a seedling, then a plant, then a flower or vegetable or herb, then end up on my plate. I get to follow the cycles of the seasons through my garden, watching the animals harvest and store for the winter, or fly by the hundreds over my heard to warmer winter homes. Do I sometimes get discouraged? You bet. It ain't all sunshine and flowers, you know. Sometimes it's disappointment, or flat out failure. I've lost count of how many times I've lost veggie plants to the weather, or flowers to the nibbles of my animal neighbors. I've even had almost a whole garden destroyed by hail.
Life is very much like gardening. We plant the seeds for our dreams and work like heck to see them germinate and blossom. Sometimes our storms are small and we can weather them. Other times they are catastrophic and we watch in horror as our dreams are destroyed. In that moment we come to understand that how we determine our next move will determine how we will live the rest of our lives. It is so easy to just throw our hands up in the air and walk away. Some would say that would be the sane thing to do, but since when are the dreams of our hearts always sane to other people who cannot feel the longing and the calling from our spirits? Last year, I lost my job, lost my health insurance, fractured my hip and shoulder, and was ready to just give in to it all and go live with one of my kids like a good old decrepit grandmother. Thankfully, that dark cloud only lasted about two weeks. By the time I was up and about on my own two feet - plus a cane - I was already asking myself how I could take those lemons and not only make them lemonade, but make the best lemonade I had ever tasted.
So here I am, watching the rain come down on the garden that I waited 15 years to get back. Actually, we needed the rain. We haven't had a steady rain for a long time and the earth needed it. Sometimes a little rain is a good thing. It washes things clean and gives us an opportunity to start over like new. I'm checking my box of seed packets just in case I have to replant anything, but I suspect that the new plantings will be okay. In most cases, the seeds, just like people, are hardier than we think. We just have to have faith in that seed.
And so it is.
Talking with an acquaintance about this the other day, she asked me,"Why do you even bother? All that work, all that money invested, and all the strain you're putting on that poor hip of yours (referring to my injury from last summer that still plagues me). All of that can be blown away in a single storm. I don't see what you get out of it." Well, I'll tell you what I get out of it and, of course, my answer will also be a metaphor for our lives (did you really expect that this would just be a post about gardening?).
What I get out of it is the chance to feel as one with the earth and everything on it. I get to be a witness to the miracle of life in all its forms. I get to watch a seed become a seedling, then a plant, then a flower or vegetable or herb, then end up on my plate. I get to follow the cycles of the seasons through my garden, watching the animals harvest and store for the winter, or fly by the hundreds over my heard to warmer winter homes. Do I sometimes get discouraged? You bet. It ain't all sunshine and flowers, you know. Sometimes it's disappointment, or flat out failure. I've lost count of how many times I've lost veggie plants to the weather, or flowers to the nibbles of my animal neighbors. I've even had almost a whole garden destroyed by hail.
Life is very much like gardening. We plant the seeds for our dreams and work like heck to see them germinate and blossom. Sometimes our storms are small and we can weather them. Other times they are catastrophic and we watch in horror as our dreams are destroyed. In that moment we come to understand that how we determine our next move will determine how we will live the rest of our lives. It is so easy to just throw our hands up in the air and walk away. Some would say that would be the sane thing to do, but since when are the dreams of our hearts always sane to other people who cannot feel the longing and the calling from our spirits? Last year, I lost my job, lost my health insurance, fractured my hip and shoulder, and was ready to just give in to it all and go live with one of my kids like a good old decrepit grandmother. Thankfully, that dark cloud only lasted about two weeks. By the time I was up and about on my own two feet - plus a cane - I was already asking myself how I could take those lemons and not only make them lemonade, but make the best lemonade I had ever tasted.
So here I am, watching the rain come down on the garden that I waited 15 years to get back. Actually, we needed the rain. We haven't had a steady rain for a long time and the earth needed it. Sometimes a little rain is a good thing. It washes things clean and gives us an opportunity to start over like new. I'm checking my box of seed packets just in case I have to replant anything, but I suspect that the new plantings will be okay. In most cases, the seeds, just like people, are hardier than we think. We just have to have faith in that seed.
And so it is.
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
Pomp and Circumstance
When I think of the month of May, I think of three things: gardening (of course), Mothers Day, and graduations. I live surrounded by colleges, with two campuses of the State University of New York to my North and South, Ithaca College to my west, and three community colleges here and there. From mid-May on, the strains of "Pomp and Circumstance" can be heard pouring from stadiums and auditoriums every weekend. The last graduation I went to, but certainly not my last - not with 5 grandchildren - was for my oldest granddaughter when she graduated high school. I remember listening to all the speeches about how their lives were just beginning, and how they were being challenged to go out there and make a difference. My reaction to what the speakers were saying was that they were leaving out some really important things that I thought these young people should know. I wanted to tell them all about the next school of higher education they were about to enter - The School of Life.
I wanted to tell them that learning never, ever ends and that one does not graduate from the School of Life. Instead, one just continues to master one subject after another. We learn to think and act on our own without our parents to guide us. We learn about relationships, love, marriage, children, and work. We also find out that some of the things we learned growing up don't necessarily hold water now that we are adults, and that we have the power to not only change our lives, but to change the world if that is our calling. We learn that the most powerful teacher of all is the one that lives inside, the voice that whispers to us when we're not on our chosen path. We learn that becoming all that we can be requires us to be flexible and open to change. We learn that hate never solved anything, but that love can solve everything. We learn that we are enough ... at least most of us do. I want to tell them that they don't have to wait until they're in their 60's to learn that particular lesson like I did. Nobody should have to wait that long to master that particular class.
So to the Class of 2015, I send my love, my prayers for a happy, healthy and exciting tomorrow, and one piece of advice to take with you as you begin this new journey: Bloom Where You're Planted. Be the best "you" that you can possibly be regardless of where you find yourself. If you do that, you can't help but make the world a more beautiful place just because you're in it.
You may now throw your caps in the air!
And so it is.
I wanted to tell them that learning never, ever ends and that one does not graduate from the School of Life. Instead, one just continues to master one subject after another. We learn to think and act on our own without our parents to guide us. We learn about relationships, love, marriage, children, and work. We also find out that some of the things we learned growing up don't necessarily hold water now that we are adults, and that we have the power to not only change our lives, but to change the world if that is our calling. We learn that the most powerful teacher of all is the one that lives inside, the voice that whispers to us when we're not on our chosen path. We learn that becoming all that we can be requires us to be flexible and open to change. We learn that hate never solved anything, but that love can solve everything. We learn that we are enough ... at least most of us do. I want to tell them that they don't have to wait until they're in their 60's to learn that particular lesson like I did. Nobody should have to wait that long to master that particular class.
So to the Class of 2015, I send my love, my prayers for a happy, healthy and exciting tomorrow, and one piece of advice to take with you as you begin this new journey: Bloom Where You're Planted. Be the best "you" that you can possibly be regardless of where you find yourself. If you do that, you can't help but make the world a more beautiful place just because you're in it.
You may now throw your caps in the air!
And so it is.
Monday, May 18, 2015
In Defense Of Weeds
Hello, my name is Dandelion, and I am a weed ... at least that's what you call me. I am actually a plant just like other plants. I was put here on this earth to be of service and fulfill my purpose. Oh, you only think I'm a nuisance because I'm growing where you want to plant one of your frilly, pretty flowers. I happen to think that yellow is a beautiful color. After all, the sun is yellow, and where would your pretty pink flowers be without the sun, I ask you? Besides, I have so much more value than you realize. Your ancestors knew how to use every inch of me, from my roots, to my greens and my pretty yellow flowers as well. I am medicine for when you are sick, vitamins to help your body grow strong, and even wine to sooth you. My yellow color makes an awesome paint ... I can paint the sun! Can your frilly pink flowers do that, huh?
The reason I a writing to you today is because the way you humans treat us is the way you treat each other. If someone is perceived to be different, if they don't "fit in" with the rest of the crowd, you don't want them around. Very often they are given labels that are derogatory and hurtful. Just as often, however, they have gifts and talents you would be surprised to learn ... if you bothered to take the time to learn them instead of just writing them off as "those people." It is more than likely that where they come from, not only are they considered beautiful and talented, but they would consider you to be "those people." In many parts of the word, dandelions are grown ON PURPOSE (wrap your head around that one) as medicine. Do you humans even know why you're here, or what your purpose is? Maybe you should give that one some thought before you start labeling others as "weeds."
P.S. You're just jealous anyway because we can still grow in the millions despite all of your hard work to get rid of us!
P.P.S. This post was written after Flower Bear spent a very hot and buggy morning pulling weeds to prep the new garden ... and she apologized to every dandelion she pulled out. She's nice that way.
And so it is.
Monday, May 11, 2015
If You Think You Got The Wrong Manual
Someone once said that life would be so much easier if we came with a user's manual. Just think ... whenever something went wrong, or we didn't know how to do something, all we'd have to do is look it up and then we'd know how to fix our lives. Wouldn't that be just great? Or would it? What if we read the manual and it still didn't make sense? Even worse, what if we came with the wrong manual?
I am reminded of the time when I ordered some rose bushes from a catalog and they came with a set of instructions for planting lilacs! With my track record for killing rose bushes, this was not a good omen. Then there was the time that I ordered a do-it-yourself bookcase from a company I'd never heard of before (always one to save a dollar when I can) only to have the assembly instructions come in a language I could not even identify let alone translate ... which didn't seem to mean anything to my then 10 year old step-son who simply looked at the pictures and figured it out by himself.
The reason we don't all come with a user's manual is because we are all unique. My manual may not make any sense to you (like those bookcase instructions), and yours might have nothing to do with where I am in my life (like where to put a rose bush as opposed to a lilac bush). Maybe the reason you think you got the wrong one is because knowing ahead of time how your life will turn out takes all of the excitement and adventure out of growing, and growing is what we're here to do. How boring life would be if we went through it without even one challenge, or the ability to make our own choices instead of following a set of predetermined instructions, but isn't that what we do when we just blindly follow along living our lives according to other peoples' beliefs and customs? The ability to blaze our own trail is what makes living worth while. Otherwise we're just another nail in the bookcase just like every other nail. How boring is that?
These days, if I can't find out how to do something by looking online (bless you, YouTube), I give myself permission to strike out on my own and make my own mistakes. It's all part of living and growing, and my garden - both the one inside and the one outside - blooms as it was meant to be!
And so it is.
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