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    Blossoms Around Town

    ByElizabeth

    Today I was filled with grief and anxiety, having taken in the pictures of India and Palestine and Iran and New York and Italy and for-profit prisons in the US and cages of refugees at the border and the over-burdened and under-supported health care workers and and and. And being out walking is strange.

    First, I counted my blessings. Then because I know what helps me, I did it:

    I sat myself down and did pranayama and meditation, made healthy simple meals, worked with focus all day, gave more money to those out helping and trying to change things for the better, spent some time cleaning and gardening, and soon will return to practicing, putting aside the influx of information for the remaining hours before bed.

    Blessings to all of you.

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    Bearing Witness

    ByElizabeth

    It was raining and that was the smallest of discomforts compared to the suffering being funded by our government.

    I do not have the courage to refuse to pay taxes. I am willing, however, to give away enough of that portion of my retirement savings that has undeniably been bloated by a war economy to offset most of my tax liability.

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    Aphids (and limitations)

    ByElizabeth

    Even though we had real, hard frosts this winter, there are already aphids on my roses.  I went out this morning and picked the aphids off of the new buds — yes, my roses are budding.  It was too cold to stay out long, but I did a little weeding and planted a couple of pots of pansies.

    I was thinking about how I garden in my tiny space — using my fingers to take the aphids off of each rose bud, pulling up individual weeds between new plants in containers, choosing to let some volunteers come up between bricks because it expands my planting area.  How different it would be if I even had a small yard by suburban standards.  It would not be possible to attend to all the detail that I see, unless I were to spend every waking hour in the garden.  If I had an acre, it would take three full-time gardeners to attend without tools and sprays the small things I touch by hand.

    It seems we make our world as big or as small as we want it.  My tiny garden is as much a universe for me as a gardener as would be an acre garden — though of course I cannot grow sprawling things like melons and potatoes and fruit trees.

    But the fullness of how much I see and experience, how much calls out for love and attention, how much I am enriched by tending and observing what is there,  is not diminished by what I do not have.  Rather, I am called to expand to the greatest what I have within my limits.  This is true, too, in our yoga and meditation practice, and our lives.  We can choose to live expansively no matter what our limits or we can choose to feel bound and diminished by our limits.  The garden, this morning, helped me remind myself of that choice.  It helped me turn towards possibilities for growth instead of towards constriction.