I’ve been walking past this rose for years. It is on the most direct route to the office. This is the first year the bindweed has taken over the rose. I imagine that there could be any number of reasons why this would be allowed or could have happened.
When the sun first appeared over the horizon, it was obscured by a low lying bank of clouds. As the sun came up, it gave beauty even to the clouds–illuminating and beautifying that part of our vision of the light that was clouded. When the sun rose high enough, the clouds at the horizon were scarcely noticeable in the bright light of day.
The artist who penned this exhortation here was highly unlikely to have intended it to have anything to do with “udyamo bhairava“–roughly, the upsurging of capitol “C” Consciousness. Siva Sutras I.5.
But if one were in the mood, one (not an academic, though), might suggest that the exhortation to rise up to one’s fullest potential, to refuse to be shackled by the oppressiveness of certain socioeconomic circumstances (I leave what those might be to your experience, knowledge, and education), as an example of one of the infinitude of ways Consciousness likes to upsurge itself towards itself.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
This morning while I was out in the garden, I heard a chirping right above my head. Within arm’s reach was a bright red male cardinal perched among the grapes effusively talking. (I planted a tiny red, concord grape vine about six years ago, and it has flourished beyond my wildest dreams).
There were enough ripe grapes for me to pick a handful for myself. I have bird netting, but I have not put it over the grapes. They did not do so well this year, many turning brown prematurely because, I think, of the drought-ridden winter followed by the extra wet and cool spring. I am grateful that I will not be dependent on these grapes as food for myself to survive through next winter (I’m pretty sure; if not, I have bigger things to worry about).
For the joy of having the birds come visit so fearlessly and delightedly, and because the grapes are not fantastic to eat, I leave all, but those I get by the small handful a couple of mornings a week for a few weeks, to the birds. Maybe next year I will net the grapes, but then I’ll have to have a canning party to make jam. In the meantime, I’ll marvel that every bird in DC seems to know when my grapes ripen.
We make decisions like this all the time. With how we shop, what we eat, what work we choose, how we travel, we are making decisions about habitat and environment for ourselves and hosts of other beings.
In yoga, the process of ever refining our understanding so that we can be more in touch with how we act impacts our life force and our relationship with all around us, is viveka, or discrimination. Just as the more we practice on the mat, the more we develop awareness of what leads us to feel more in tune and more celebratory of life, so too, we want to use that yoga refinement and discrimination to inform our acts off the mat.
After the cherry blossoms come the crabapples, sweetly scented.
