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Healing (and the Garden)
After sitting for meditation and writing in my journal this morning, I went out in the garden in my slippers to see what opened after yesterday’s juicy rains. My journal-writing is feeling lonely because that was one of the times Becky (and Henrietta before her) and I always sat together. Once I was in the garden, though, my heart lightened. The beans and snow peas I planted a couple of weeks ago finally have started germinating. Some of the seedlings I planted on Saturday have already doubled in size. There are a few buds on the peppers that were not there Sunday and twice as many leaves on the basil. The clematis seems to be a foot taller; is that possible? (The okra still has not germinated; will it ever appear? I do not know, not having tried okra from seed in a container in my yard before.)
Though, as my sister said to me on Sunday, I will always miss Becky and Henrietta, I appreciate that my grieving is in the time of renewal, new life, and expanding light, and that I can spend the morning time that I used to devote to Becky and Henrietta nurturing the garden and myself in the process.
The Sky Is Just As Big Wherever You Are
The sky was luminous and beautiful early this morning when I headed out to teach. The air was scrubbed clear by the cold front that passed through in the night, leaving behind fluffy clouds to highlight the luminousity of the sun rising.
As I enjoyed looking at the clouds and light in the sky on my walk to Union Station to catch the metro to go teach, I thought about seeing the sky in Arizona next week. When I am there, I always feel a keen delight when I look at the sky. Then I thought that the sky is just as lovely here. It is that things on the land are bigger and farther apart out west that make the sky seem bigger.
When life is easeful and we are feeling spacious, then the inner place of meditation can feel more luminous than when we are struggling through the day. But just as the sky is just as big wherever we are on the planet, the inner space of meditation is just as vast and luminous no matter what is going on in our lives. The more we remember that and the more we look, the more we will have the opportunity to be lit up from the inside.





