Photos

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    It Takes a Snowflake

    ByElizabeth

    It is almost inconceivable to my limited mind how many snowflakes it took to whiten our world yesterday morning.  This weekend, there will be far more snow (alas, it will be too cold to stick to the trees and create such a beautiful canopy; instead we will have howling winds and heavy going).  I might catch the first of the snowflakes tomorrow morning on my walk to work before the storm really comes in with all its wild fury.  When there are only a few, it is easy to see the individual flakes.  Once there is a storm, though, we tend only to see the storm.

    Just as it is hard to remember that the snow is about both each individual flake and the whole snow fall together, we forget about the simultaneous place of ourselves as individuals as part of the whole, or we get caught up witnessing ourselves as individuals and forget that we are all a part of a much vaster energy.  The reality is that we are all both all of the time — we are completely individual and part of a vast, interconnected web.  When we can remember and witness both aspects of ourselves, then we can most deeply witness, participate in, and appreciate the extraordinariness of being.

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    The Other Side of the Building

    ByElizabeth

    This is the view from the corridor just outside my office door.  On the left is the Tax Court.  On the right, is the homeless shelter where Mitch Snyder, advocate for the homeless, committed suicide.  In between, the highway emerges out from under our building.  At rush hour, especially on a rainy day, it is completely congested.  Even on a cloudy day, not much light comes in the window.  It is a north-facing view, and the windows are tinted.

    If I were to be standing at a window on the other side of the building, it would be bright with sun.  On the left would be the Capitol and the west lawn.  In the center, the National Botanical Garden’s graceful contours would gleam on the far side of the reflecting pool.  To the right, the National Mall, flanked by museums, would stretch in the distance to the Washington Monument.

    What is important to remember is that both sides are always present.  When we are facing harshness, demands, suffering, and challenges, we need to remember that beauty and light are still present.  When we are filled with abundance, beauty, and light, then we must remember that there are others who are challenged and suffering and make efforts to extend to them our own abundance and light.

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    Nightblooming Jasmine in Winter (and sadhana)

    ByElizabeth

    I walked into the dining room yesterday and caught a hint of an exquisitely sweet fragrance.  I knew the paperwhite bulb I was forcing was only in bud.  What was it?  I went to look and saw that there was a single blossom on the nightblooming jasmine.  Inside, in winter, the single bloom emitted as much apparent fragrance as dozens outside.  I have had this plant for 12-13 years, since it was in a three inch growers’ pot.  The last time I repotted it was several years ago, but I faithfully bring it inside and out every winter/summer cycle, and feed and water it plentifully.  In response, it keeps getting fuller and offering blooms.  When it is outside, it can have dozens of blooms at once.  Sometimes I harvest the buds before they open and use them to scent green tea.  When I find open blossoms in the morning, I harvest them by the handful and put them on my alter or in the bedroom, where they will provide scent for a day or two.  Outside in the summer, while profuse, the blooms last only a single night.  Inside in winter (with an average 24-hour a day temperature of 61-62F), the blooms, though coming more occasionally and only a couple at a time, can last for three or four days.

    I think the blossoms of yoga and meditation sadhana (practice) are not dissimilar to the way this plant blooms.  With steady care, they will always bloom, though sometimes more than others, sometimes with a different character, and sometimes with just growing periods with no apparent blossoms.  Sometimes, there will be a wild profusion of vision and offering, but those tend to be fleeting.  The memory of the intoxicating perfume, though, keeps us tending the practice, knowing it will come again.  During the time between the wilder experiences, the nectar still comes, and though in less dramatic ways, perhaps all the sweeter for coming in a time wh

    en we are just practicing and tending and not expecting any great revelation.

    jasmine

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    Ice on the Potomac

    ByElizabeth

    A treasured friend and respected colleague who left her body late last week was buried this morning.  The work year started, then, with some colleagues and I leaving the office for a portion of the middle of the day to drive up to the cemtery and offer our love to her family and our good-byes to her physical presence.  On the way back to the office, I noticed that the Potomac has been icing over, which is very unusual.  I also remembered that I had my camera in my pocket.  So I took it out and caught the moment in honor of my friend who would have loved the way the birds were dancing on the ice, in honor of beauty, in honor of the life teeming above and below the apparently still, frozen river.potomac ice