If we just mouth words or put them on our walls, then they are little more than the happy platitudes all too prevalent in marketing yoga and just about everything else.
But if we use such words as reminders to grow and engage, then they are very much more.
I am having my bedroom painted over the holiday break. Yesterday, I took all of the pictures off of the walls, moved most of the other furniture into other rooms, and rolled up the rugs in the hallways. The room is in the middle of the plastering and sanding stage and is filled with the painter’s tools, and so, the door is shut.
Becky only has two places she likes to be for most of the day: on the bed in the bedroom and on the sofa in the living room. When I meditate in the morning and then write in my journal, I sit in the living room. I used to try to sit in the yoga studio, but after her sister passed away, Becky howled until I sat in the living room with her. Becky now will fetch me to the living room if I do not go to meditate right after I have fed her. This morning, she woke me up early because the bed was not in the right place, and she was not happy that the bedroom door was closed. When I went to sit after feeding her, she stomped back and forth, instead of coming to sit with me. When at first I did not pay attention to her, she got more agitated. I finally got up to check on her. She raced up the stairs to be outside the shut bedroom door. I picked her up and brought her back to the living room to sit with me. I pet her until she relaxed. Once she had been shown that her morning sitting place was still there, I was able to sit in meditation without disturbance for 25 minutes.
Our own minds are like that. If there has been a disturbance in our routine that ripples our mind waves, whether it is celebration or upset, small or large, it can feel very challenging to meditate. If our thoughts continue to be in a whirl while we are sitting, we need to just bring our thoughts back to the mind space of meditation over and over again, just as I had to remind Becky our sitting place was still undisturbed even though her daytime sleep spot was disrupted. The more we practice, the easier it becomes to shift to an inner place of peace and light. The less often we allow changes in routine to disrupt our practice, the stronger we become in the face of challenges.
This morning I went to my community garden plot around the corner before I got ready to head into Georgetown to volunteer at The Lantern Bookshop.
I ws delghted to find enough snowpeas for a good-sized stir-fry and several zucchini almost ready to be picked (I only get zucchini at the very beginning of the season before the squash borers invade, but if I start early enough, I can get a few pounts of squash and a couple of meals worth of blossoms before I surrender and plant something else).
The tomatoes were flourishing (no sign of blight. If you have your own plants, keep an eye close for blight; it’s aleady been seen in Maryland. Cherry tomatoes are more resistant, so I’ve concentrated on those).
I should have the first cucumbers big enough to pick next week, and I have plenty of lettuce.
The radishes, though, had exploded. “Should I have a radish-themed dinner party?” I thought. “What am I going to do with all of them?” I am not especially fond of radishes. I plant them because they mature very early, they thrive on benign neglect, I have friends who like them, and they give the same crunch I’d prefer from a cucumber weeks earlier.
I’ve also discovered I like them cooked. Just as you can prepare turnips and their greens together, it also works well with radishes.
As I was walking home with a bunch of radishes that I could hardly get my hands around, I bumped into a neighbor. I don’t know her well, just recognize her face. “Do you want some radishes?” I asked, hoping I did not sound like I was begging. She hesitated, but then seemed to realize that she would be doing me a great service by accepting them. “You can cook the greens,” I said as I handed her a nice-sized bunch, “and also the radishes themselves if they are too strong.”
“I’ve never done that,” she said.
Here’s the recipe I gave her on the street (with a little more detail here):
Wash radishes and their greens well. Cut radishes into thick coins (this works best with oblong radishes sich as French Breakfast). Cut off the white part of stem nearest radish. Then cut the bunch horizontally so that you have half inch wide shreds. Mince some garlic, onion, and ginger. Stir-fry aromatics in peanut, safflower, or canola oil until translucent. Add the radish coins and stir until well-coated with oil. Add greens, stirring continuously until all the greens are wilted. Add some rice wine vinegegar and cook until absorbed and the grrens are just tender. Take off heat and sprinkle with soy sauce or Bragg’s Amino Liquid and toasted sesame oil to taste.
“What a nice morning,” my neighbor said, “fresh radishes from the garden and a recipe.
