There might have been a violent thunderstorm here or there (completely missed my neighborhood), but things are desperately dry in the Washington area. Please conserve water (turn it off while lathering soap on hair and body, brushing teeth, shaving, etc). Don’t wash pavement or cars. Definitely water trees really well once a week.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
This weekend’s work in the garden continues on removing summer plants that are no longer productive to make way for cold weather planting (various greens and root vegetables).
The cherry tomatoes and a couple of the hot peppers are still flowering in addition to fruiting. Those I will leave in place as long as they are producing or until a frost, whichever comes first.
I ruthlessly pulled up all of the other pepper plants, gleaning the last of that cycle of the harvest (some years there are lots of peppers to pickle and roast and enjoy into winter, but not with this summer’s weeks of blasting, arid heat followed by the flooding storms).
With the limited space in my tiny garden, frittering away time or space from sentimentality, attachment, neglect, or lack of knowledge, has a significant impact on the possibility of flourishing. Sometimes I relish my ability to be ruthless in the garden–to tear things up that do not serve, let them go, and invite in new and more nourishing and productive things.
When thought about in relationship to the vastness of possibility, my life is not unlike a tiny and limited garden, the limits being space and time and the particular and peculiar collection of quirks, challenges, and talents that came in this incarnation. Oh to be as ruthless in discarding what does not serve in this life as I can be in the garden.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
The changes in my neighborhood over the past several years take some getting used to; there are so many new businesses opening up where it was once abandoned and dangerous to walk. This fabulous mural was on my walk to 2nd and M Streets, NE to the new flagship-sized REI at the U-Line building to get new hiking boots. On my extended walk home to break in my new shoes, I bumped into neighbors outside the Atlas Theater.
As I have walked around town enjoying the spring surge of blossoming trees, I found myself remembering that our most famous cherry blossoms were a gift from the Japanese, which remembrance sent a deeper yearning to help send healing.
At one sunny, pink-blossomed drenched moment yesterday, I found myself asking how could one’s heart not reach out to a people who brought us such beauty. I then thought that this country had no problem incarcerating “those” people on “our” soil and bombing their country when the arrival of the gift of our famous cherry trees was still in living memory. At that time, “they” had become our country’s enemies because of the actions and statements of those in power. The gift had become irrelevant in the context of war.
The peril in both thoughts is that they distance us from opening and relating to the essential identity and humanity in all of the individuals we meet of various nationalities and alliances–whether in a time of gift-giving or in a time when we cannot abide the actions or ideas of those in power.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
One of the aspects of mind-body centering and the yoga asana teaching I’ve gotten from that lineage, is that the first question you ask yourself is whether you are safe–usually a given if attending a yoga workshop.
If you’re not safe, then you should be addressing that and not going further towards some particular practice exploration. Everyone deserves to be safe enough to explore mind-body-spirit.
