The Trembling Leaf

Is it just fine to spend this moment focused on the trembling leaf outside my window? I can see the wind in its effects.  I see the terrible cold that stunted the earlier leaf buds on the ginko tree, yet I see the juicy green of the leaves that have unfolded at the very tips of the branches. So I consider Syrian refugees, and families that have been washed away by floods in East Texas, and I think of my students and am amazed at the level of focus as I say, "notice..." and "feel..."

I listen for their breathing and I can feel the way they share their energy, whether they mean to do it or not.

My heart has so few protective layers when I teach. I feel this time of year like the growth of new skin on my finger tips. I am like the cucumber seedlings on my windowsill.  Each tendril on the cucumber plants seeks something to support it -- wrapping around the stem of its neighbor, or the stick nearby, or simply reaching out into the unknown to see what it touches, not caring too much if it is a fence, a stick or a weed. Aren't we just like that too, until we curl back towards ourselves in protection or just stick with what we know?

Can't we simply sit in the fading evening light and take both delight and sorrow in the trembling leaf? Of course we can. And it helps to know that others can give themselves permission to do this too. I can say in this blog, however public that may or may not be, that it is fine with me if you do likewise. No matter who you are, where you live, who you love, what you are fleeing, or how you dream.

"Mindful" by Mary Oliver (Inspiration as August ends)

Mindful

Every day
  I see or I hear
     something
        that more or less

kills me
   with delight,
       that leaves me
          like a needle

in the haystack
   of light.
      It is what I was born for ---
         to look, to listen,

to lose myself
   inside this soft world ---
     to instruct myself
        over and over

in joy,
   and acclamation.
      Nor am I talking
          about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
  the very extravagant ---
     but of the ordinary,
        the commonplace, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
   Oh, good scholar,
       I say to myself,
          how can you help

but grow wise
   with such teachings
       as these ---
          the untrimmable light

of the world,
   the ocean's shine,
      the prayers that are made
         out of grass?

from Why I Wake Early, Beacon Press, 2004

Building Meanings Again

Loss of a steady gaze coming back at me

And subtle knowledge that a conscious mind was observing

Recognizing that no arms could hold the child as the heart now yearns

Understanding that those soft voices no longer attend my sleep.

So I begin again, not as though newly begun.

As with memory, there are confusions.

Even my own role has slid quietly into a slow single step

And another. Who to tell of the ripening raspberries?

I don’t want to tell their stories that change the shapes to fit

Nor do I want to sing the songs that erase that phantom cadence

With my own voice.

Some lilies bloom on a rainy day.

Some of the birds eggs are found broken in the grass.

Yet clover blooms and gravel washes in rivulets.

These are the meanings I collect.

Of clouds moving in a backlit sky,

And sounds of poplars whispering of winds and hidden nests.

When I draw breath there is movement throughout my being,

Whether I am really here, understanding, or not.

Being: Day Lilies for One Day

All day long, from the very start, I consider the lilies and am filled with amazement and wonder. It's not just that they are incredibly beautiful, so many colors, interacting with the light as it changes all day long. No, it's not that really. It is this inevitable truth that they open these insanely perfect blooms for just this day and then, that's it. If it's a rainy day, well, that's their day. If it's burning hot or windy or full of bugs or deer eating lilies for lunch or whatever, that's their day. And they bloom their very best, regardless.

I've tried to capture them with my digital camera but the colors are not right. These lilies are alive and blooming, I mean specifically, these lilies are totally saturated in the very act of blooming all day long. How can any frozen second capture that? Like this breath, or this eye blinking? A living moment.

And in the twilight of their one day, they are luminous. Some of them are already closing their petals having had their full day of possibilities. Some of them are just beginning to peel open that first petal at dusk in preparation for full bloom at sunrise.  Some bloom into the night. When dead-heading lilies early in the morning (breaking off the spent blooms to make more space for the opening ones), one must be very attentive to those that close in the morning.  They can look so much as though they are just opening.

I can only imagine this feeling of being completely in fullness in every moment. That this is the day for me. Yet it is true that this IS the day for me, and for you, and this day and this day. It seems so wildly unbelievable that we can have a chance to really live in every moment, day after day, when these remarkable and unique lilies only get one. Just one day. Live the one you're in.

bud opening, bloom closing

Joy rising from the dirt

There is a point in March when looking around the garden and yard feels overwhelming to me. Cleaning up from the winter, re-establishing garden in the midst of the wild fields, raking the driveway gravel out of the grass, starting all over with the process of nurturing plants and watching them become food for other wildlife, tackling the ever shifting vagaries of vegetables that thrive and succumb to the myriad issues of weather, soil, attention and bacteria... Well, it feels like more than I can stand. Alone I cannot prune all the trees, dig out those rocks, re-form the raised beds or even haul all the brush. So there are relationship matters to accommodate in my spousal partnership, allowing the priorities of both parties and energy levels of each of us to be thoughtfully and non-judgmentally considered.

And then there is that moment in early April when we can watch the dry brown grasses greening up over the course of three days of sun and slightly warmer nights. All this and the compost pile is still frozen.

Still, in January I begin to contemplate the vegetable plots and their rotations and by February and early March the seeds arrive. They sit and wait patiently in their envelopes, just as I go through this churning of helplessness and interpersonal negotiations. Then, as trees bloom in warmer climates and all the yards in New York City begin popping with color and fragrance, the little corner of upstate New York begins to awaken too. Where my garden lies is in the shadow of a north facing hill, and once all the snow and ice is gone, the cold soggy earth starts sorting itself out. The birds return and start house hunting. Just putting out the bird houses is an act of faith in the dark days of March.

Though I have not yet been able to turn the soil, I must pile all the earth to the middle of the beds because the wooden forms around my raised plots have rotted after so many years. By the next week, there is new wooden framing, the plots have been turned, and yesterday the onions were planted alongside the now 8" tall garlic greens.  My pants are filthy, hanging over the laundry basket waiting for me to put them back on for this morning's plunder of the thawed section of the compost pile.  My garden maps have been redrawn to make room for the arugula, spinach, lettuce mixtures, radishes, snow peas, sugar snaps, little shell peas, carrots, chard and beets. Packets of seeds sit in my basket, still waiting for my clumsy gloved fingers to open them in the bright sun and cold wind.

For the last two nights I have woken as the waxing full moon set across from the rising sun glowing behind the hill.  My tired muscles slightly regrouped after the night's rest, I am filled with joy at the prospect of another few hours laboring to welcome the seeds into the dirt we have prepared for them.

This is the practice. Seeing what is so and accepting that all of it is connected. Developing the ability to abide: patiently acknowledging while not judging the tough times, diligently putting in the effort as one must, but softening as one can; welcoming the joy that arises from the dirt with full knowledge that not all the seeds will thrive and some will produce splendor to share even with unwelcome guests. We are not separate from this ever-shifting inner and external see saw. It is the practice that gives me balance and equanimity. Now to put on those mud-shoes and get the morning job done.

We are the fruits of the Earth too: just one, all one

Reading several different descriptions of the eight limbs of yoga, I am struck again and again by how they are inseparable. It is a strange function of our human way of using language that separates words and concepts, creates constructions for us. The moments when the mind can see this, yet not attach to it, are the openings pervaded by the essential qualities of life. For some this translates to a flow state, for others into nirvana, orgasm, or transcendence. Basically it is a unified condition, not separating into any of the this-and-that usually running our daily activities.

People are not separate either, though it sure feels as though we are if we stick with our mental configurations.  A friend passed along an article about our intrinsic mirroring neurology, that which gives us joy when we see joy in another, and sorrow when we see sorrow in another. This is built in to us, a depth of compassionate connection that can be traced to specific chemicals in the body released in specific reactive moments.  We can cultivate these in our yoga and meditation practices by opening to the flow of compassion, and allowing our feelings to rise and dissolve the barriers. We will not disappear into pain and suffering, quite the contrary, we begin to see that there is so much else that supports and nurtures us.

We are all fruits of the earth.

I brought a handful of grapes to class one day, inviting each student to take one. Some ate them right away, so I instructed everyone to eat that one, and offered a second one to observe. With the flavor and textures of that first grape in the mouth, we looked at the little dark globe in our hands. Each just a grape. Outer skin a little tough and bitter, inside juicy and sweet, and beyond that, buried in the interior, the crunchy seeds that could be seen as the purpose of the grape itself. None of these grapes looked outstanding in the bunch, yet each was so delicious. None of them, eaten by us, would come to fruition through the seed within forming a grape plant, yet each fully served a purpose, perhaps several purposes actually.

Are we not as the grapes in the bunch, each just a grape, yet perfect in our multiple possibilities and purposes? Do we not all have a bit of the toughness of that outer skin, the sweetness of that inner flesh, the potential of that crunchy seed we are designed by our very nature to nurture?

Thoughts of Snakes & Heart Breaks

I've thought before about the way a broken heart feels as though it just isn't working properly anymore, as though the shell around the form has broken open and everything is tender and at risk. Oddly enough I began thinking about this in terms of growth rather than destruction or disrepair. This morning I had the deepest feeling about snakes and the way they literally lose their skins in order to allow for growth. They do not mourn the old skin, truly a sense of non-attachment! Nor do they worry about the size or shape of the new -- no grasping!  This happens several times in their lifespan, as it does, seemingly in our own human life span whether we see it that way or not.

It is amazing to see a snake swallow its nutrition in the form of whole animals. I think of the long slow sustaining absorption process that takes place along the enormous length of its digestive track.  Could it be helpful to think of ourselves in this way, that these huge inputs require a long slow digestive fire to take in the full meanings and sustain our growth? It seems we far too often think we ought to know in an instant, or learn over night, or get the message that first time. I know from my own teenage journals that I really did experience much that led to insights only to go on and repeat the lesson until I was able to actually absorb the insight.  What if we give ourselves the benefits of time without judgment, using  the kernels of understanding as they break free from the mass?

And then there's that wild way that snakes move, always with strength and grace, yet more often than not, resting quietly absorbing the heat of the day, or breathing slowly in the coolness of shade. They spend much more time just being than being busy. Wouldn't this help us too?

I'm not saying that we are snakes, or that snakes are we (at least I don't think that's what I'm saying), but I do think we suffer far too much heartache without associating that ache with the growth it so often makes possible. No matter what kind of day I'm having, if someone near me allows me to see they are struggling, I feel the ache. Years after a loss, or a painful scene, the heart can revisit its old shapes and replay the cracking of what felt like the safety of the shell.  We do this in our sleep through dreams, we do this in a split second when the air smells a certain way, or the light hits the edge of a leaf. You know what I'm talking about. Our hearts are very open to being broken, to feeling soft and exposed. Perhaps this belies a suppleness we have overlooked.

We go to a movie and weep for the characters. We hear a voice singing of heartache and ours responds. (I think of Leonard Cohen's song "Hallelujah.") If we are not grasping at the past, are we yearning for the future?  Can we re-visit our snake ancestry and allow the cracking to open us to the self that is already there growing into who we already are?

I come back again and again to this kernel that broke clear:  I am not waiting for anything. I am already right here. If that is so, then nothing is broken and I have what I need to make of this moment all it can be. I can allow myself to let go of the cracking shards and truly break open.  Is this a frightening idea? It is so only if being more fully oneself is frightening. Isn't that where life expands? Filling in the new skin, growing into the new shape, and going on until the next cracks let the light in to see the soft, supple and unfettered heart?

the mind of not all or nothing: just see what emerges.

Walking in the light powdery snow, I was bewitched by the transformations, leaves became cups and simultaneously appear as knife-like edges in the snow. Distances in the valley are aflutter with white flecks turning air and space into volumes. Definitions disappear. Here the submerged log emerged with its tinge of velvet green moss. What is the truth about the light snow, the maple branch below or the leaf litter? Can the surface be surface, while the depth is a huge mass of fallen tree, and the snow be falling too?

All bound up in thinking, I bind myself up with projections, goals, memories, ideas. Reaching for the shapes that I think, I practically block any sense of the real. I cannot pretend to give up thinking, nor do I want to do that. I am beginning to see that it doesn't take huge complicated tools though to loosen the tightness of the bind of my thinking. It is like the way I learn not to reach too hard to catch my own hand to bind an asana only to give up on my spinal alignment.  It begins with noticing that my thinking is confining me.

More and more I see how selective my letting go has been. I seem to release this grip, but not that grip. I believe this, but not that. I tolerate this, but not that.  Once I see this personal structure, this selective way of grasping at one aspect while avoiding another, I have the opportunity to be more fully. Truth and freedom, equanimity and clarity glimmer in all the levels of letting go. It is not an all or nothing proposition, like light appearing in the dark. It is always light.

In my snowy walk, the most striking thing happened as I turned to return to the house. I felt thrilled and surprised to the core to see the subtle impression of my own tracks:  a slight disturbance in the powdery snow with delicate crushing of the leaf edges into the powder. This evidence of my own steps seems most marvelous of all -- holding for just a moment all the wonder of impermanence and presence.

Weed Control or Right Action?

Every time I weed or water, I take stock of how things are going. I've made decisions to push back the wild field growth and plant specific flowers or edible fruits, roots or leaves. This gives me responsibilities but doesn't really put me in charge. When it doesn't rain for days on end, I feel the urge to provide water, since I'm the one who asked this plant to grow in this place soaked in sun and dried by wind. If it rains too much, I am the one who puts boards, or rings of salty or sharp materials out to attract the slugs from the plants that get besieged the most. I know that deer will prune my cherry tomatoes and lily buds, some woodchuck may eliminate my zinnias or half a cucumber plant, the birds and chipmunks will some of the blueberries. I understand that all my effort to weed in any one place will be repeated again and again and grow over if I neglect that task.

Today, after many sunny days, there is a drift of cloud cover and I know that means today's task will be transplanting. There are just a few plants that are not thriving as they could. In a couple cases, I attribute this to wrong placement: planted where once they had dappled shade and now have too much sun because of the loss of a nearby bush or tree or the opposite case, planted once in sun and now because of the growth of nearby trees, not enough sun to flourish.

For me it is intuition more than garden design that brings the shovel to hand. I know that where I plan to put that astilbe it will have a good mix of what it needs, but I also know that to make even a small hole for it, I will be excavating rocks and filling in with soil from somewhere else. I cannot control what will happen. Sometimes moles will eat the roots of a healthy happy plant and it withers and dies. Sometimes for two years in a row I don't see a plant bloom because the deer have chomped the buds and then there is a spectacular Spring show, unlike any I've ever seen because somehow the deer passed it by that season.

Yet I do feel the weight of my actions, playing with the lives of plants, even if for my own good purposes or their better cultivation. I carefully cut the chard leaves that we will eat, leaving the plant's newest growth to continue. I cut the lettuce, or broccoli rabe in the coolness of morning, water in the coolness of evening, and do that which I know to do in ways that I hope disturb the natural cycles the least. I see the wilting leaves in the hot sun, and think about the evening's watering to sustain them. I know that the buds that open in the morning care nothing for me or my appreciative gaze.

I have taken it on to grow these beautiful and edible plants where there were once different beautiful and edible plants (though perhaps not edible for me), leaving many wild patches of raspberries and blackberries, roses and barbary, gooseberries and elderberries, along with the field full of grasses and thistles, milkweed, joe pye weed, yarrow, vetch and so many others whose names I may never know or cannot remember. As soon as I turn my back, the plants I have planted here will struggle to keep their footing as the wild ones return. Each seeding for its own survival, spreading roots, and seeking out the moist earth.

Today, after I moved an echinacea from deep shade into a sunnier spot, the sun came out. That poor plant drooped, even with the good soil and water I had given it. I put a wire cage around it and draped a white tee shirt over it for protection. Half an hour later, the clouds came in seriously and sporadic rain drops began to fall. The tee shirt came off, the droopy stalks still sagged, but perhaps tomorrow will straighten them up. The coral bells, astilbe, heliobore, and goatsbeard have all settled down as though they were just waiting for this moment. Today the gray sky brings me joy.

Inquiry & Acceptance

Prodding, poking, pushing at the self, at others, at conditions, into what seems so: this is reactive nature at work. Curiosity sometimes masquerades as the motive for questioning things, for aggressive inquiry. Fear may be hiding at the core in some of the pulling, pushing at and away; flowing under both timidity and boldness. How can we practice yoga, or meditation for that matter, as an essential inquiry and accept the inquiry without all this manipulation?

Deep in this tangle of branches the sun simply shines on the snow. It doesn't matter if the snow is covering old pine needles or is clinging to the branches of the wintry tree. The sun simply filters through anything it finds and interacts without hesitation in its specific seasonal angle, heat, duration -- all of which are conditional upon where on this earth's sphere we are observing that it is shining.

This is the magic of awareness and acceptance. With a focus of attention, and deep openness to whatever the attention finds, like the sun's light our attention can continue to shift and reach anything in its path. So with attention, and the key is acceptance. If we must control, name, categorize, and react to what we find, we are lost in the constant push-pull interaction of the surfaces, forever entangled.

The inquiry can be the beginning of noticing how "I," the person I have built out of experiences and meanings, with materials like conditions and reactions, respond to the inquiry itself. Do I resist? Do I tense up? Do I weep? Do I compete with myself? What is the pattern I have already created for this category of "inquiry?" Once seen, let the reactions rise and fall. Allow the light of your awareness to filter as does the light of the sun, reaching whatever it finds in its rays. The ability to witness the rising of responses, like feelings and thoughts, tensions and spaces, comes as you accept that you can continue observing without getting lost in the tangle.

So we practice. "Practice" implies that it is an ongoing experience, not a once-and-done kind of knowledge. Each moment that I inquire and accept is a living present moment, connecting to something far more universal and open than the reactive nature I observe.

My sprained ankle is healing, gradually giving me insights and experiences of myself functioning in the world. With each step I find I am inquiring as to the balance between the constant friction of judgment and testing and the open space of acceptance.

treasuring the unknown

It is unfamiliar for me to walk in a Southwestern desert landscape. The forms and contortions that vegetation make to adapt in the severe and extreme climate astonishes me. I find the utter newness keeps me vibrating with joy and alertness. It is so natural to resist change or the unfamiliar, yet I have chosen to put myself in a context where I do not have the usual clues and continuity. What remains steady is my attention.

I know that one foot steps and the weight shifts. There is red rock dust and gravel beneath my feet, the air smells sweet and there is no wind. Everywhere my eye turns I am seeing the possible and the impossible. My own interpretations cease to carry much meaning. There is such grace even in the harshness. So much life even in these adverse conditions. It is easy to watch my own patterns here, in this wide earthly ocean. I see my attempts to categorize, to combine what I know with what I do not know. I feel the open spaces where the unknown beckons my mind even as it is easier to leave the mind resting, an observer.

Gratitude without Measure

No need to pile up the gifts or the blessings, marking the gains.
No need to sort the losses, the wounds, the sorrows, noting the missing.
No need to reach beyond the moment into memory or projections of what might come.
No need to fight despair, or grasp for happiness.

Here I am.
Letting go when the time comes.
Cradling with love when the time comes.
Sinking into the earth, or rising to meet the sun.

Here I am.
Or perhaps no longer here.

Not stacking the logs of what has come my way.
Not picking through the ashes of what is gone.

Perhaps there is no difference between that which makes me happy
and that which makes me sad... except the way I respond, attaching
to the idea, my body circuits reacting and flooding me with the chemicals of the moment.

A carrot from our dirt comes,
a walnut from a tree far away,
an apple from the yard, dropped,
a raisin dried from grapes of another season,
bread baked in someone else's oven,
herbs saved from the side yard,
squash found grown in a friend's compost,
cranberries from a New Jersey bog,
oranges from a hill in California,
potatoes from the nearby Middleburgh Valley,
and faces around the kitchen table
made of hope and willingness.

Do we measure this, on which yardstick?
The category of gift or loss? The levels of love or tolerance?
The measuring cup of last year's meal?

I am here, and the greatest joy for me
is the gratitude of this moment.
That I am in this exploration,
human and conflicted,
humble and proud,
loved and loving,
breathing
and not knowing
the next moment
until now.

Looking for Answers

finding what is in me,
gratitude for the discoveries,
space for the questions,
breath for the inquiry.

answers no longer exist -
the process is revealed.
it all comes down to more space
for the questions, the discoveries,
and the breath.

Stones Teaching Me Today

The stones arrange themselves, not because their shapes are right, or their weight, or their color, or their texture or even their chemical composition is "right." There is no value at all in any of them, yet each is all that it can be at this moment. And they belong where they are, wherever they are. Small, smaller, smallest. Hard, harder, hardest. And so it is with us. Can we simply accept that we are as we are and allow ourselves to fit into the world, into each other's hearts, arranging ourselves?



We arrange the stones too. Feeling their heft, absorbing their subtle surfaces, seeking their fragmented shapes. We layer them and organize them, rely upon them, and leave them long after our own breath is gone and done. We turn natural parts of the earth towards our own purposes. This is part of our exploration of our own existence.



Stones are a path that we cannot see, just as the practice is such a path. Until you step upon it, you may think the path is a garden of sedum and strawberries. Your feet will find the pebbles supporting them even when your mind is unaware. This points to the entryway that the body provides us for experiencing our own lives. Thank goodness for that!



Even that which seems dead and inert is simply a form in which energy is stored, or used. Maybe we see the lushness of the sedum and think "oh that's living and beautiful," and enjoy the juxtaposition with the inert stone. Yet the lichen grows on the warmth of the stone, not in the dirt. This reminds me that the sensory world is totally subject to my mind's construction of the moment. I can observe without having to assign "living" and "inert" and yet understand the concept of "living" and "inert." And I can practice accepting that this doesn't limit my awareness, or devalue my sensory input. Accepting that I am standing still on the earth and that it is turning on its axis, and that it is revolving around the sun, while at the same time I am breathing and every cell is open space.

Yoga Using the Body

Two days ago I stubbed my toe and it drew my attention like a rocket exploding across the sky. I could almost say it shook me to my foundation and took my breath away at the same time! From that instant this simple change in the way my foot reacted to everything has served as such a deep reminder that everything is subject to change and that the feelings and meanings, stories and responses are not who I am, they are just conditions. At this point my toe only speaks when I push on it, but it has helped remind me to soften my feet in every Asana, and highlights how my balance and my movement are related to breath and a rising core energy, and my relationship to the earth whether I am noticing that or not. The toe made sure I was noticing. What a gift!

Yoga practice is not a routine. Pratapana (preparatory movements) and Asana (postures) can be repeated daily and even in the same sequence (though that is not my style), yet the practice is unique to the moment. Each day that I open my eyes, the light astonishes me. Even thinking that I know which hip will be creaky, what is actually happening in the moment is something specific and can only be experienced with awareness in that moment. The instant I stubbed my toe, my body reacted and my mind reacted; my breath reacted (that sharp intake!) and my feelings both physical and emotional jumped in. Each time I settle on the mat, my body sensations and my inhale/exhale can take just as much attention. Can an ordinary moment, of transition from inhaling to exhaling, of resting in Virabhadrasana I (Warrior I standing posture), be as fully engaging as the moment I stubbed my toe? Yes, it can if I allow myself to choose to focus fully upon it. Through the body and its senses and reactions to conditions, the reactions of voluntary and involuntary muscles and nerves to the mind's directions, and within the patterns learned, I can literally find myself intensely and completely sitting on the mat breathing in and breathing out. My body gives me a laboratory in which to experience my self and the world, both internal and external.

What is the point of this intense presence? Is it some release into higher consciousness or trance-like tranquility? Well, not really for me at this point, though it may sometimes go through a stage like that. I think of the Asana practice, the practice of yoga through the body, as a stage in waking up. Allowing myself to observe so closely, to experience more fully without attaching to the experience, brings me to a new level of equanimity, while simultaneously integrating my energy into my entire being. I am at whatever level of practice this is, that I can more easily be clear and awake through the yoga practice, even while withdrawing from my sensations and becoming more and more of an observer, using experience and reactivity to help me see and be my self.

The ache in my toe brings my inner awareness to what I can release more fully into the experience. Releasing into the experience demands letting go more fully of the "idea" of the experience. Sitting or walking meditation starts in the same way for me it seems, using the breath or awareness of gravity or light. I guess this is just where I am on the continuum of cultivating consciousness, that I use my body as a prop, a processing plant, a playing field upon which to see and play the game of being who I am. After all, I am experiencing this life in this body, so I might as well use it with gratitude for all that it gives me!

Blueberries: A View of Human Development

I couldn't help myself this morning as I picked blueberries. Their beautiful range of color and size, ripeness and tinges of not-quite-ripeness kept reminding me of the stages that human teenagers go through. I could feel the attraction and intensity of the darkest ripest ones, and the repeating superficial trick of those that seem ripe but on closer inspection are tinged with red and still not ready. The eye goes to the larger riper looking ones, and yet the tiny ones are delicious and sweet. Usually in a clump of translucent green berries there is one totally ripe one and occasionally one is so ready that it falls off the bush. All of this seems to represent to me the way of our own growth in the years between childhood and adulthood.

In any group of teens one often will ripen first. And there is an opalescent beauty and seductive potential in the clumps of not-quite-ripe ones, just as there is in the teens who are still half in childhood. The ones that seem ripe, but are not, are so like the teens who want to seem more mature than they actually are, and the adult tendency to pay attention to taller mature looking teens seems just like the magnetism of those larger ripe berries, yet the flavor in the ripe small ones may be even more succulent. I also love the way they grow in clumps of various sizes, with a few that are attached separately to their own twigs. So it seems with teenagers, some seem to grow and travel in small groups, while others find a more solitary way or have one or two companions on the path.

It doesn't bother me when the birds or the bugs or even the chipmunks manage to get a few of the berries. We throw netting over a brace to help keep a few for ourselves. With berries there is enough to go around. But it does bother me that the developing ripeness of teens is so often picked off before they are ready for the fullness of the forces that fall on adults. Berries can take a lot of sun and wind, though they can shrivel without enough water; and teens can take a lot of outside influence and roller coaster like ups and downs, with enough support and love. But it is much harder for teens to tolerate the the range of their own development as a shifting set of conditions while it is happening. They often don't have the equanimity of the berries to be true to their nature no matter what happens to them, and sometimes adults cannot offer the support to fill in that space either.

Perhaps it is the tenderness of picking each berry, one at a time, gently plucking from under leaves or from among the bunch of not-quite-ripe ones, that seems so consonant with contemplating the handling of young humans. How they may appear riper in the shadows of the branches, or stand out in the way the blue blush deepens to that perfect point of ripeness. How to support and nurture the young humans as they, too, slowly swell and develop into the lusciousness and fullness of being who they already are. Blueberries have a tendency to tartness mixed with the sweet. Peelings are resilient and the seeds are embedded in a soft inner core. The green of the inner flesh turns purple when cooked. So, too, do human children mix the tough with the soft, the ever-hopeful with the desperately undone. Able to imagine almost anything, and yet unable to think their way out of an emotional situation, human teens could use encouragement to allow themselves to accept their own stages as they actually experience them. Let them ripen in their own time, among their peers, but still attached firmly to the branches that bring them support and nourishment. And I wish for them all over the world to have enough of what they need to celebrate each stage without falling off the bush too soon.

The Unforeseen: Water Rising Fast

The story of the rising river in Arkansas is deeply moving. Campers sleeping in the woods woke to the fierce imperative of the water, washing away concrete pads, tents, trucks, people and trees. Some survived with ingenuity, some with sheer physical feats, some inexplicably through letting go into the moving world. Many did not survive.

I react as I hear the reporting on NPR. Park personnel and meteorologists knew there was potential for bad weather but no one “saw this coming.”

The ongoing unfolding of events and effects in the Gulf Coastal region from the sudden outpouring of oil and gases from deep in the earth has evoked a lot of pain and suffering. No one saw this one coming either, though the actions of the humans involved would seemed to include some perfunctory projections and measures to handle the unforeseen. The unforeseen includes a continuous change in the composition of the ocean affecting all the life in it, as oxygen is reduced throughout the sea with dispersal of gas by microbial action that releases CO2. How do I accept this awareness without it sending me plummeting into despair?

September 11, 2001 was “unforeseen.” I watched the deep dark plume cross the bluest of blue skies over my head, chanting for peace in the souls traveling there, unconsciously as a way of finding out whether I was still breathing. The effects of human choices and actions are often unforeseen. I think of all the news that streams at me from all over the world. A flood in Nashville, economic collapse in Greece, daily terror in Palestine and Afghanistan, struggles below the surface everywhere, and signs above ground.

Unforeseen. We cannot know enough to see how everything will play out or to be ready for any and all consequences. Maybe I can open my mind beyond the dualistic, understanding that the flood and the gases, the campers and the oil-coated pelicans are all part of one world. This is part of the flow of events and our actions and reactions will continue as the flow. We have choices about that.

Krishna says to Arjuna:
You have a right to your actions.
But never to your actions’ fruits.
Act for the action’s sake.
And do not be attached to inaction. [Gita 2.47]

Self-possessed, resolute, act
Without any thought of results,
Open to success or failure.
This equanimity is yoga. [Gita 2.48]

The teenage girl who chose to hang on to a tree in the rushing waters, in spite of the severe pain and injury she suffered chafing against the bark, saved her own life. She will recover and carry the scars of her survival and her losses. The ocean has many mechanisms with which “to hang on to the tree,” so to speak, but there will be losses, and scars. The people living on the shores have choices too, how to use their resources, where to put their energies. W cannot know what is coming, nor the full effects of resultant and changing conditions.

Must I remain attached to my reactivity? Will sorrow and attachment to the idea of a right answer weigh me down and sink me like a stone in the rushing water? Can I detach and cultivate consciousness so that all the possibilities remain, including that the water may throw me onto shore? This too is unforeseen.

I lean into my yoga. Saying “Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya,” I breathe the ache in my wrist and my heart. Saying “May I release in to that which sustains me,” I sense the open space where possibilities spread like the rising water. Perhaps sinking, floating, hanging on, or tossed on shore, the way will open if I inhale and I exhale.

Recognizing grace in the unforeseen. The wind in my ears, I am reminded that the human voice is but a natural and impermanent part of the world. Let go and find myself here. Now.

Those Blooming Beings!

In Brooklyn walking to teach, I pass the rose bushes that inhabit the small garden spaces, overhang the wrought iron fences, and scatter their petals across the sidewalks. I feel waves of joy and gratitude as I observe the blooms, half open, full blown, and wilted, browning petals and the infinite potential of the buds. Just like remembering my own breathing, I nod in recognition of this continuous cycle of creative energy. Without a judgment of what is beautiful or what is not beautiful, or, acknowledging the human tendency to make such judgments, I feel intensely present.

In my upstate world it is earlier than that. It is the crowning moment of the iris bloom. Only the hardiest of shrub roses are open -- it is a rare one of the flamboyant sisters in Brooklyn that could survive the winters here. Yet the irises have outdone themselves as they must with variations and each as wonderful as the next, they stand folded and unfolding their treasures. Tall, short, single, multiple, every hue, fragrant or not, shade or sun, there they are. In the sun the petals are sometimes like the wavering wings of insects, translucent and veined. In the shade they are sparkling glowing and luminescent. A sudden pouring rain and they are drenched, sodden, leaning, and in some cases broken. In every aspect theirs is a direct expression of energy. Each moment is a marvel. When there were only three open blooms, they were an amazement. Now there are hundreds and they are still an amazement. Slug eaten, wind torn, or delicately perfuming the world, this year's bloom will come and go.

When the blooms are done, their leaves will spread open to the sun, their tubers will sink roots more fully into the soil and in time their seasonal death will come. Each moment fully present, just like those Brooklyn roses, rotting on the sidewalk or cascading over the fence. Thank you for sharing the path with me.

Making choices: pruning & oil spills

The catastrophe of oil spilling into the gulf waters has brought a lot of attention to the choices we make, the risks we are willing to take to fulfill our desires, and how we see responsibility for the outcomes.

Oddly enough, pruning involves these same aspects. The action involves cutting into a living thing in order to suit a desired purpose, taking risks on behalf of that living thing and in committing our energies, in so doing. Sometimes it is hard to tell the winter die-back from the not-quite-juiced-yet early spring twigs. Sometimes the growth that is stimulated by cutting off the ends of things can result in a skipped year of blooming, an invigoration of the remaining plant, or an overly exuberant growth spurt out of proportion to the supporting stems. Cutting can open a plant to infection from a variety of bacteria or insects. And so, convincing ourselves that it is for the health of the plant or for beauty of form or an increase in output, gardeners prune the shrubs, fruit trees, roses and other perennials and live with the results. Sometimes the outcome is not what we expect, losing the plant, thwarting the intended result, or requiring a more intense or vigilant effort -- an even deeper involvement -- in order to get what we want, deal with the difference, or salvage the situation.

Our desires for energy, car and plane travel, long-distance shipping, constantly increased electronic connectivity, more packaged products and profits in all its forms, in addition to a seeming proclivity to deny the role our choices play in the problems from which we suffer, all seem to boil down to that same equation: the choices we make, the risks we are willing to take to fulfill our desires and how we see responsibility for the results. A couple things seem clear, we don't usually consider widely enough the ramifications of our choices, nor do we find it easy to recognize the depth of self-centered desire embedded in those choices. In terms of gardening, though, I think we are likely to be aware that we make these choices in order to serve our purposes, in other words, to bend the plant to our desires even if we don't think through fully what fuels those desires or might result from them.

Perhaps it is helpful to think about pruning, starting with recognition that the world in which we live is, in essence, living organisms and inter-dependent systems that are not separated by names or our ways of making distinctions among them. Like choosing to plant something in a spot that is not conducive to the culture it requires, first we must recognize that we are not in charge of everything nor do we know all there is to know when it comes right down to it. Then, either we must take responsibility and make the deep commitment to ensure that the culture is appropriate so that the plant will prosper, or we must look again at our motives for putting it in that spot, and reconsider our desires in light of the risks we cause. The life of the plant hangs in the balance, as does our desired outcome.

The role we play is part of the natural process of living organisms in this earthly context. Elephants and beavers reorganize the natural habitat to suit their purposes, and suffer the wider ramifications without taking responsibility for changing the habitat for others or displacing other species of flora and fauna. Humans have the ability to see this especially now that we do have hundreds of years of experiences and research to draw upon. As if holding those pruning shears in hand, we have the ability to see our choices, and act in the interests of the plant's health rather than in service of our ever-changing desires for larger fruit or bigger blooms.

Weeding the Asparagus Bed

Three-pronged claw tool in hand, the task seemed both daunting and necessary as I faced the asparagus bed choked with field grass, milkweed, vetch and everything else. This has been going on all of 14 years, a continuous process of returning the asparagus bed back into wild field. My part of this is to turn the tide every spring, reminding the asparagus bed that for the next few months its asparagus production will take priority over its field-meadow production.

I am not in conflict with the weeds. I turn the earth to the depth I must, careful not to disturb the dormant asparagus, in order to pull out the roots and extract the majority of the visible volunteer weeds out of the bed. This process aerates the soil and integrates the compost and manure, reveals the health of the earth full of worms, and loosens up the top layer so that the soon-to-be growing asparagus will find its way to the light. The pile of weeds goes into the compost to return in a few months to enrich the soil from which it came.

Mostly I focus on the few inches of earth around where my tool has scraped. When I look up I see the expanse of the bed and all the weeds yet to come. In the same moment that the thought pops up, "this is going to take forever and I am already tired," I smile and acknowledge that as I go, the distance is covered, the bed is weeded, one handful at a time. I do not need to defeat myself by imagining the size of the task as too big, nor spur myself as an endurance test to work beyond my strength. I see how much there is to do, and know that it is this moment and this handful of earth, this grass root in my fingers that are my life, not the beating around the head feeling of how much more there is to do, nor an eventual patting on the back feeling of accomplishing the task.

Does this make life dreary, taking out challenge, motivation and accomplishment from the job? Not for me. I accept that my goal is to be happy in this moment. I can acknowledge my tired fingers and appreciate the depth of the root I am struggling to pull. When I stand by the compost bin to catch my breath and see the fullness of material I have just dumped in there, I can see the asparagus bed too, clear of weeds for the moment, rich earth ripe and ready for asparagus and weed alike. What I know is that the sun is still shining, the wind is pulling at my hair, and I'm ready for a drink of water. I'll be thrilled to see those asparagus tips come up, even though there are sure to be a young crop of new weeds right along with them.