Blossoms Around Town
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State of the Garden (Front)
Late day spring is coming light on snow.
Punctuate as it suits you.
Vacation
I am delighted to be going on a short trip to a warm place (Tucson) to do nothing but yoga and visit with friends and acquaintances.
My work life is such for the next several months that I cannot take a long vacation. I can find a few days here and there, though, and it is critical to my working well. I find if I work with too much effort or for too many hours or days in a row, I lose my sense of humor and my creativity. These are truly essential components of doing a good job.
If you cannot get away for a day or two or five, take five minutes to just breathe without following your thoughts. It is not a vacation. It is meditation. It will not serve in the way of a vacation, but it will provide a needed break from attachment (perhaps to the point of misalignment) with the mindstuff (citta) and will enable you to continue with your efforts more at peace with both the efforts and yourself.
Excellent Blog on Community Gardening in DC
I was just led to this blog entry on community gardening in DC from the DC Urban Gardeners‘ list serve’s daily digest. The blog entry was originally posted last spring, but still has helpful information, and the service provided by the blogger looks interesting too.
If you have been thinking about getting into a garden, now may be a better time to get on a waiting list than the start of the growing season. Now is the time that novices have realized that they don’t take care of their plots, and they are better off supporting the local farmers’ markets. If you cannot get into a garden, why not be the fantastic neighbor that starts a new garden?
In the interest of full disclosure, after a few years at the garden nearest to my house, I decided to restructure my tiny backyard to add three 3’X3′ beds. This gave me as much space as I had in the community garden. I would love to have both spaces or more, but since there was a long waiting list at the garden, I ceded my space. Currently most productive in my garden: cucumbers, hot peppers, and all sorts of herbs. Tomatoes aren’t doing too well, but I’ve gotten a few eggplants and my first big butternut squash. Yum!
Why Did It Make Me Feel Better? (and Pictures from the Middle of the Night with Irene)
Why did it make me feel better to think it could have been worse? Hurricane Irene revealed a place that probably would not have leaked (into the living room) if mortar had not been shaken loose by the earthquake earlier this week. As I was doing another check early this morning of the house and perimeter to see if I needed to do anything to prevent worse damage from late discovery, I thought that it probably would have been a lot worse for the earthquake to have revealed stresses from the hurricane than having had them do the reverse. I guess it would depend on how the two impacted something to know which sequence would have been easier to weather.
I am appreciating my good fortune in having seen the wind and the rain and come out having no tangible material impact other than memories and relatively minor repairs that need to be done in a hurry. Holding all in the path in the light.
An Obituary and a Quote Being Widely Shared
It is extraordinary to think how one man can have had such significance in so many lives. This quote provides valuable insight and perspective:
“I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” Martin Luther King Jr.
According to one source, the quote is a hoax (though no proof is offered). It is a beautiful quote, whoever penned/said it.
