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    Robert’s Dendrobium

    ByElizabeth

    roberts-dendrobium2A number of years ago, when he was moving from Capitol Hill to Denver, my friend and former neighbor Robert gave me this dendrobium orchid, which bloomed this year for me for the first time.  The dendrobium was just an extra.  If you know orchids, you can see that it is planted with a vanda.  These orchids came from Robert’s mother’s garden in Florida.  When she had to give up her place in Florida, Robert brought home some of the orchids, including the vanda.  If I know Robert, he just saw a baby dendrobium in the garden and stuck it in with the vanda when he carried it back north to Capitol Hill.  When Robert moved to Colorado, he left the vanda with me because he did not expect it to tolerate the Colorado climate.  Even here, the vanda is not likely to bloom.  Not enough heat, light, or humidity in DC (really!!!).  But after five or six years of steady care, the dendrobium flourished and finally bloomed.  Robert inspired my affection for orchids; he had a greenhouse and knew each one of his tropical plants intimately.  We would go to an orchid show or nursery, and he would look with love on each and every plant, cherishing their individual traits, no matter how small or large.  At the botanical gardens, he had different plants he visited and enjoyed.  Now his yard has cactii and peppers.  He has a few of his most faithful orchids, which are flourishing and which were delightful to visit, and I have this lovely reminder of a time when Robert was one of my local gardening buddies.  This, I think is one of the extra joys of gardening, especially with houseplants that come from cuttings.  They have a history with our family and friends that is passed on, cherished, and shared.  I also have a night-blooming cereus that was a baby from a plant that started as a baby of one in his mother’s garden.  The night mine first bloomed (just a single night in the year), the parent plant with Robert in Denver also bloomed.

    Bonus love from this particular dendrobium; it is scented!

  • The Space of No Words Required

    ByElizabeth

    The other day, after having worked, been on the phone, and continued in the social whirl of the holidays, the thought sprung up in my mind that I wanted to “go to the place of no words.”  It felt absolutely essential that I go into the space of deep meditation.  It was not so much for escape, as for rest.  For me, meditation can provide more of an opportunity for my mind to rest and renew than can sleep.  I rarely have dreamless sleep, and when I am very busy, my dreams get more so.  My meditations, like everyone’s, can be full of thoughts and words.  Thoughts will inevitably arise.  What is different in meditation, though, is that even when my mind is full of thoughts, I know I do not have to follow them.  I can just let them be — as if there were some radio or television program on that I just allow to be on, but to which I do not give my attention.  It is this rest from paying attention, from having to follow and direct thought that I wanted so that when I returned to active thought there would be more clarity, discrimination, and, where needed, detachment.

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    Ganesha’s Vahana

    ByElizabeth

    I don’t have much family, and I know little about the family I have. I am the one living with this photograph (the only one I’ve seen) of my maternal great grandmother because we are the only two with frizzy hair. The story I heard about her was that she gave birth to my grandmother en route from Eastern Europe and carried her across the ocean to the lower East Side.

    This Ganesha makes me think about that level of determination –what we can do when we figure out how to turn a rat into a ride.

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