Viewed from the apparent safety of my office building under which the highway runs. If the accident were 300 feet farther south it would be under my building and we might be subject to evacuation. I am reminded even more powerfully of the message in my post this morning.
In the middle of the day today , I took formal leave to bear witness at the march against gun violence on the Capitol grounds.
Having brought myself face to face with this many mothers of murdered sons, what could I do but offer respect, see what I can do to help from my own well-being.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
A number of years ago, when he was moving from Capitol Hill to Denver, my friend and former neighbor Robert gave me this dendrobium orchid, which bloomed this year for me for the first time. The dendrobium was just an extra. If you know orchids, you can see that it is planted with a vanda. These orchids came from Robert’s mother’s garden in Florida. When she had to give up her place in Florida, Robert brought home some of the orchids, including the vanda. If I know Robert, he just saw a baby dendrobium in the garden and stuck it in with the vanda when he carried it back north to Capitol Hill. When Robert moved to Colorado, he left the vanda with me because he did not expect it to tolerate the Colorado climate. Even here, the vanda is not likely to bloom. Not enough heat, light, or humidity in DC (really!!!). But after five or six years of steady care, the dendrobium flourished and finally bloomed. Robert inspired my affection for orchids; he had a greenhouse and knew each one of his tropical plants intimately. We would go to an orchid show or nursery, and he would look with love on each and every plant, cherishing their individual traits, no matter how small or large. At the botanical gardens, he had different plants he visited and enjoyed. Now his yard has cactii and peppers. He has a few of his most faithful orchids, which are flourishing and which were delightful to visit, and I have this lovely reminder of a time when Robert was one of my local gardening buddies. This, I think is one of the extra joys of gardening, especially with houseplants that come from cuttings. They have a history with our family and friends that is passed on, cherished, and shared. I also have a night-blooming cereus that was a baby from a plant that started as a baby of one in his mother’s garden. The night mine first bloomed (just a single night in the year), the parent plant with Robert in Denver also bloomed.
Bonus love from this particular dendrobium; it is scented!
The second sutra of the Siva Sutras is “jnanam bandhaha” (knowledge is bondage). In the context of the Siva Sutras, this tells us that getting caught in trying to acquire knowledge of the manifest world and all of its infinite minutiae can lead us away from a sense of connection to a universal spirit.
We have the phrase in the work place that the “devil is in the details” both because getting caught up in the details can take us away of accomplishing a desired result and because the details need to be worked out to realize the result, and the details (not the theory) are the hard part. At the societal level, for example, working out the details of a health care bill and how it will actually function seems to be preventing us, as a society, from offering health care to all. On our yoga mats, we need to understand the details of physical alignment so that the practice strengthens and optimizes our health, rather than taking us physically and energetically out of alignment, but we do not want concentration on the details to take us away from heart and spirit.
The “devil may be in the details” but we cannot stop the details from being part of our existence. As much as we need not to get so bogged down in the details that we have discord, distrust, unhappiness, and ineffectiveness, we also need to cultivate knowledge of the details. As beings embodied in space and time in the manifest world, we need to cultivate knowledge so that we can recognize when the details are not in optimal alignment, so that we have sufficient knowledge, strength, intuition, and subtlety to be able to shift the details so that they lead towards good for ourselves individually and collectively.
What a devilish conundrum.
There is an unreality to the beauty of the Spring blossoms. If you look closely at the photograph, you can see how terribly dry is the ground. How long can trees blossom when in drought? If we fail to nourish the whole, beauty is much less likely to manifest.
1. Still dark, too early to get up; oh right, daylight savings time.
2. Wait; wake up call is Sri Rudrum; here’s the part I’ve learned by heart to help invoke auspiciousness, wisdom, compassion, light, interconnectedness, steadiness, fierce will, etc; good reminder; don’t sleep through it.
3. Nuclear reactors in Japan; wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; Libya; aftermath of BP oil spill, Katrina, and 9-11; budget talks prioritize war and business as usual; no senators or Congress person for DC; mountaintop coal mining; tar sands; diabetes/obesity epidemic.
4. Time to nurture cats and plants and sit for meditation; I am indeed blessed.
5. How do I bring “2” and “4” to my response to “3”?
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.