“Get Local” Profile
To read a little more about my personal yoga journey, please check out the “Get Local” profile that was just posted by District Kula. Thanks DK.
To read a little more about my personal yoga journey, please check out the “Get Local” profile that was just posted by District Kula. Thanks DK.
said the guy who is doing the exterior painting and repairs to me this morning, after we were talking about what needed to be done with the stairs, and we talked a little to the downstairs resident who was on his way out to work. Then he paused, after thinking about what he had seen of my house and garden and added, “unless it is cultivated.”
“Yes,” I replied, “it is cultivated.” I will never be completely easy-going, but at the same time as some might wish me more easy going, one of my strengths is my attention to detail and my ability to create order. I cultivate, though, an ease with necessary disorder — the disruptions that come hand-in-hand with construction, repairs, creation (art, kitchen, garden, home), growing relationships, and comfort where I am. We may not be able to change our nature, but we can make shifts that ease our being. Radical affirmation in yoga is accepting our tendencies, but then seeking shifts to make life even fuller.
So said the meteorologist, when I called to check the weather yesterday before getting ready to go out for work. I thought, “it is easy to enjoy your day, ‘regardless of the weather’ living in a nice house with enough money for heating and cooling, working inside, and getting food flown in from wherever, if the garden isn’t doing well.”
I am awed and fascinated by the weather, although living this almost entirely protected and secure (from the elements, less so from other people) urban life, it is an almost vicarious relationship.
One of the reasons I love gardening is that it links what the weather — a rainy and cool spring like we are having; a drought, like we had for the past four years; violent thunderstorms; a snowy winter — with what food grows well, how my wildlife supporting little garden in the front thrives, helping to tie me back to the earth.
Today’s snow was a soft and beautiful one. Mostly, though, people were complaining that it was still snowy and cold.
With camera in hand this morning, I thought that to have more when we have already had too much makes it hard to appreciate the intrinsic good of a thing. I enjoyed this snow as a reminder of how moderation can enhance pleasure.
I then surrendered to the fact of the snow and to its beauty, letting go of my preference for spring mildness.