Searching for Rainbows

It is winter here, and the landscape has gone to whites, grays, and a more muted palette. I stand at the windows and watch the movement of birds… watching, waiting, watching… for that flash of color that brings a zing to my heart.

In spring and summer, I search for BLUE… I am a bluebird fanatic, and nothing lifts my spirits as much as a bluebird sighting. There is something in my brain that registers… that brings my attention to the color, shape, flight pattern of bluebirds. When I capture such a sight with my eyes, my spirit soars!! It is really so.

eastern bluebird

Who knows where they go in winter? I assume they are out there, and we have seen them in small flocks when snow has covered the ground in sufficient depths for some cross country skiing. But out my window right now, there is another set of rainbow movement as birds flutter around the feeders on this cold snowy day.

Winter Blues

For blues, I need only to look for the blue jays who are greedily gobbling up the sunflower seeds left in the mammoth flower heads out in the veggie garden. We grow the variety that exceeds 10 feet in height and 12 inches in flower diameter. The heads hang suspended, and the blue jays cluster along the fences waiting in turn to pull luscious plump sunflower seeds from them. They also attempt to use the feeders we have filled with black oil sunflower seed. They look like B-52's compared to the other birds. Surprisingly, they also seem to like the suet that has been set out.

bluejay

Winter Reds

Finally, finally, the cardinals have returned. For the past few months I have been searching and searching for them. This last snow storm finally pulled them in. In a flash, yesterday, three couples suddenly appeared (where have they been until now???). Red, like ripe apple-sized cherries, like lovely Christmas tree ornaments,… there they were. Their female mates, a more subtle shade of reddish gray, are there, too. Always, there, too. My eyes scan the whites/grays/dark greens of our wintry landscape and delight to see that red sparkle.

cardinal couple

House finches and purple finches flash lovely shade of red, too. I must be forgiven if I do not take as much delight in their presence…. always, they are here at the feeders. Constant and dependable companions.

house finch

purple finch

Downy and hairy woodpeckers have a flash of red on their heads which is another sight my eyes hunt for at this time of year. In photos, they are hard to tell apart. Hairy woodpeckers are bigger, so they are easier to ID in three dimensions. Both love the suet that I hang out for them.

hairy woodpecker (larger body, longer beak)

downy woodpecker (smaller body, shorter beak)

A special treat that greets my eyes from time to time is the sight of a red bellied woodpecker or, even more rarely, a pileated woodpecker.

red bellied woodpecker

pileated woodpecker

The red bellies occasionally visit the suet feeder…the pileated woodpecker, never. Just the other day, I got a rare sighting of one flying through. Mr. Wonderful has been gifted with the sight of one actually perching on one of our deck posts!

Winter Red Surprises!
Last year, I noticed a BRAND NEW bird to the feeder. With its bright red cap and red breast, I knew I had never seen anything like it before. Turns out it was a common red poll which usually winters further north, but because of climate change, it is having unusual migrations. A nice surprise…

common redpoll

Winter Muted Yellows, Oranges, and Grays

These birds are our winter standbys. They are plentiful and omnipresent from dawn til dusk. Their subtle coloring is a good match for the grayish skies and landscapes of winter. Their perky behavior is a joy to watch.

male goldfinch 

red breasted nuthatch

chickadee

junco

white breasted nuthatch

titmouse

mourning doves

The Fall Blitz

It is fall, and we have finally had a hard HARD frost. Yep, those annuals and perennials that were hanging on, have had it. They're all flopping and yellow today, and the ice crystals on their leaves are sparkling in the sunshine.

I am one of those gardeners who let things go until they cannot be left alone any more. The perfect model calls for garden clean up like Martha Stewart's test kitchens... immaculate. Not here. I usually let it go for the sake of the birds. I am especially fond of the giganterous sunflowers that grow 12 feet tall and have seed heads the size of turkey platters. Right now, as I type, I watch the blue jays having a feasting festival on those babies.

I also leave the echinacea and black eyed susans which used to look like this. No more. But the seeds are primo.

 

This gorgeous plant is another one that finches seem to love, so I leave them standing, too. Verbena bonariensis. The purple color lasted all the way through October. Only with this latest frost have the colors faded... but the seeds are still there, and I will leave them that way.

Out in the veggie garden, most of the clean up has been done. Plants pulled and chopped up for the compost pile. Leeks, carrots, spinach, chard and broccoli are still there, though waiting for a final harvest. Wow, what a difference between summer and now, eh?!

Fall is such a great time to plant for the future. We decided the old red dilish apple tree was just not worth the effort (mealy apples, diseased leaves, tons of pruning in early spring), so Mr. Wonderful hacked her down this weekend. The apple wood will be gorgeous in the wood stove next season, and in her place we have had a 12 foot service berry tree planted. Service berry trees are bird candy, and I am really excited for the bird action it will generate. Plant now, and wait, wait, wait. All good things take some waiting, yes?

We also whacked back (hard) the old willow tree to the east of the house. A new roof was installed this September, and that willow was just too close to coming down on it, ..... so, poof, gone. Well, not entirely gone. The main trunk remains and will, we are assured, sprout more branches some spring. Add that to our garden clean up this month! The fun continues….

  

But the most fun (or the funnest, as Mr. W. likes to say), will be the new pole barn. Gravity has been working overtime to slowly, glacially take down the old barn that we loved so well. With so much else to do, we have been letting nature take its course. One section of unattached roof made its final leap last week. Everything else is soooooo slowliy tilting to the east or west.

We're making progress. Progress, not perfection. Progress is good.

Gardening as a Spiritual Practice #7: Sounds of Silence

Sounds of Silence in the Garden
I don't tech up when I am working in the garden. No headphones. No phone. No nothing.

I like it that way.... unplugged.

There really is a "sound of silence". There is the breeze in the trees. There is the humming of bees and other insects at the height of flowering. There is, if you listen closely enough, the sound of things alive and growing!

I love working in my gardens without any devices... just me, the sun, the dirt, and whatever might "speak". Sometimes it is an animal. The chickens, for example, are a constant chatter of cockling and crowing and squawking. The insects, too, have a dim hummmmmmmmmmm as they brush among the flowering plants. The hummingbirds, which were fewer this year, have their own wavelength of shzzzzzzzzz.

I am intrigued that the sounds of farm machinery that occasionally dot my days seem natural and part of the mix. My neighbor is plowing. My neighbor is cutting grass. My neighbor is bulldozing that section of land that needs "adjustment". I am not bothered.

The birds add a lovely set of sounds to the mix. The red tailed hawk who claims this air space will give its screech call from time to time. The nuthatches and chickadees have their peeps and squeaks. The cardinals are some of my favorites with their calls. Now that so many birds have left for warmer climates, the crows awaken us with their caw, caw, caw. And often, there is nothing.... no thing... a beautiful silence that I swim in as I dig in the dirt, transplanting, or weeding, or picking, or simply standing and watching. The sound of silence.

I have witnessed such beauty in that zone. One day, as I picked beans and stood for a moment engulfed by pole beans and corn stalks, there was a subtle SWISH... there in the corn. Just a gentle quiet SWISH. Pollen was thrown into the sunlight, a cloud of pollen... some bee or hummingbird, or other tiny creature feasting on the tassels just .... poof... I stood mesmerized by the delicate cloud of pollen it released and the silent sound of colliding softness. Something small and light smacking right up into something also small and light!

Ahhhhh, my heart sang. I wished, at that moment, that I had had a camera to capture the beauty of that time in space! But my mind's eye captured it and holds it dear.

The great blue heron flies by in silence. The apples grow large and sweet in silence. The butternut squash in the manure pile fatten and ripen in silence. The fruits of my veggie garden do, too. In the perennial beds, the day lilies boast their beauty in silence along with the zinnias and hostas. I float in the silence of this amazing abundance.

Sounds of Silence in Spiritual Practice
I must admit that I have been drawn to religious traditions that sit in silence. It began back in the 70's when I was blessed to spend time with Quakers down on St. John Island in the Virgin Islands. I sat with a small group of folks who believed that "3-4 are gathered in my name", spirit is there. I subsequently have spent time in Unitarian-Universalists churches, Zen Centers, Tibetan groups, Unity groups, Yogananda groups, AA groups, and all appreciate the value of silence. Just sitting. A-waiting.

I prefer the sound of silence to the constant din of contemporary "music" or talk radio. I choose the peace of silence to the cacophony of political argument or self righteous debate. I have always had a predilection for contemplatives like the Desert Fathers, or Rumi, or Thomas Merton. I don't care about their dogma, about what tradition they follow. The contemplatives are united by an appreciation of just BEINGin silence... of awaiting.... of listening when there is nothing to listen to.

In the silence, when all the clammer settles down, there in that silence.... and out of that silence, comes a knowing that cannot be described. It has many names. Higher Power. God. Higher Self. True Self. Original Self. Clarity, intuition. Like clouded water that has been allowed to settle... the particles fall to the bottom revealing the clear water. I love that space.

And, I get to access that peace and that beauty when I am out there sweating and digging and pulling and cutting and getting muddy and dirty out there in the garden.

What could be better?

Gardening as a Spiritual Practice # 6: Acceptance

Acceptance in the Garden
It is officially fall now, and the trees are turning and dropping leaves... the sun rises later and later each day and follows a lower path across the sky throwing long lovely shadows that speak of colder weather on the way. Nights are cooler. Days can be, too. But there are still a few shorter blasts of bright summer-like days that make the colors dazzlingly brilliant and fill autumn hearts with honey-light-warmth. Ahh.

It is time for me to put the gardens to bed... ALL of them. No more squash. No more cukes. The tomatoes and potatoes were trashed by late blight. I am finally over mourning about that one.

Acceptance is ongoing for gardeners. In the spring, we want the weather to be warmer, cooler, wetter, drier. We want the seeds to sprout faster or slower. We wish the compost was hotter, drier, wetter, ...more this, less that. In September, toward the End of Things, we want the summer harvest to go on and on... and on and on... and on. Accepting things as they are, whatever that may be, is challenging. But gardening has a way of insisting that we do just that... accept what is.

Nowadays, in the fall, we must accept that another season is over. The more energetic of us will get invigorated trying out new extending devices... high tunnels, hooped protections... anything to defy the fact that Mother Nature is telling us the Time Is Up for growing food. OK, OK. Some things can still grow. I have leeks, spinach and broccoli out there, and they just chuckle as the nights grow colder and the days shorter. But, my days of processing and freezing goodies from the garden is over!

In the perennial beds, acceptance takes a different form. I really love that flower and want to grow it THERE!  ... but the soil and sun conditions just might tell a different story, a story I don't particularly like. Then again there are those WEEDS that just keep pushing up no matter how much mulch, .... no matter how much pulling or digging is done. I experienced it both ways... not getting what I want, and (yep, lots and lots of this one...) getting a whole lot of what I don't want. I have taken a pretty laid back attitude toward what grows and what doesn't. I know I am supposed to have a PLAN... all nice and neat on graph paper... with overlays for the different times in the season early-mid-late. My garden is more a mix of what I want and what happens. There are some plants that have been moved around and about, trying it out over there after it didn't work over here... sometimes giving up on it altogether. It just wasn't meant to be!

Acceptance in Spiritual Practice

Lao Tsu, an ancient Chinese sage, said it well: Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them - that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.

Many of our most troublesome tendencies arise when we cannot accept what is. 

Denial ain't a river in Egypt, and much of the world seems to be suffering from it. Denial, that is. Denying reality, fighting reality, forcing and wrestling with reality. As I accept and flow with the changes in my gardens, I find I can more easily accept the changes that occur in the rest of my life. I can live in the present and put down the burden of fretting over past mistakes just as I have put aside the disappointment of no tomatoes and no potatoes this year. I don't choose to worry about next year's crops; they will take care of themselves when the time comes.

That seems to be true of most of my so called "problems". My life, like my garden, is a mix of what I want and what happens.  I learn to accept what is, and Let It Be. 

Gardening as a Spiritual Practice # 5: Wabi Sabi

Wabi Sabi - (Japanese) The spiritual appreciation (beauty) of imperfection

My old friend, Tom, (may he rest in peace!), introduced me to the concept of wabi-sabi. He entered my life during a difficult period.... he was an old guy who helped me, single 50+-something me, after a beloved of 13+ years decided his heart lived elsewhere. Tom helped me around the house. He taught me the beauty of imperfection. He actually produced a local newspaper article to prove this was a real concept! So, the house is old and not plum, nor level.... it is OK. The paint is peeling, the floors creek...this is beautiful... it is the wabi wabi of old houses. Accept it..... Love it. Thank you, Tom!

Wabi Sabi in the Garden
This year, when Old Friend Tom passed on, he gifted us the contents of his house and garage which included ZILLIONS (ok, that's hyperbole) of assorted pieces of lumber. Tom was a guy who needed/wanted/could not live without backups... and his garage was filled with lumber. Guess who he left all that wood to???? Yep, Mr. Wonderful. Tom knew a kindred spirit when he saw one. So, we inherited a shitload of lumber. Mr. W. decided it was time to get that organic veggie garden organized, and he used much of that gifted lumber to build 3.5 foot by 8 foot boxes for raised beds. It is very, very,   VERY structured now, with 4 boxes across and 3 boxes back and 3 foot pathways in between so we can bring in a wheelbarrow.

I went into my "research" mode and read all I could about square foot gardening. We set the seeds according to square foot recommendations, we planted seedlings using square foot recommendations. It all seemed so organized.... so clear.... so neat!

Ah then.... wabi sabi happened. The first set of beans did not germinate.  The zucchini spilled WAY over the boundaries of the boxes as did the patty pan squash. The raccoons took care of half of the corn stalks, so carefully planted as seeds, 4 to a square foot. The tomatoes went and got late blight and went DEAD on us... and on and on.  I am smiling now as I imagine what Tom would have said to see the final garden... "Wabi sabi", he'd have said. "It is beautiful! It is not what you wished for, but it is what you got, and it is perfect in its willy-nilly perfection!"

And, he is right!

Those magazines that show organic gardeners and perennial beds and homes that are oh-so-perfect.... ARGH!!! My outfits for gardening are stained old ragged things... the photos I see in those magazines show some reality that doesn't exist out here where there are bugs, and manure, and hot sun that brings up a constant sweat, and unbelievable weeds that just won't quit, and knee deep muck, and chicken shit, and hard work.

Thank you, Tom, for reminding me that wabi sabi, the beauty of imperfection, is right now, right at this moment, alive and awake in my garden!

Wabi Sabi in Spiritual Practice
Need I say much more???
Who here is as CLEAN as those magazines???
Who here is as SMOOTH as the websites that offer advice????
I absolutely LOVE the spiritual practice of imperfection... the acceptance that my problems, worries, bad times, all that STUFF that makes me human can be viewed (with acceptance) as beautiful.
My wonderful Mr. Wonderful has a phrase that puts the wabi sabi of ME into perfect expression.... all my "unique and quirky" attributes are part of MY ADORABLE PACKAGE!

Now, get that. My imperfections are part of an adorable package!!! Wow, I don't feel so bad about all my ..... hmmmmmm.... less than perfect attributes.

What if we could all view those in our lives with the same ease and judgment free attitude?
Try it.
Who gets your goat? It is just part of their "adorable package". It is their "wabi sabi".
Find some way to celebrate WABI SABI today in your life!

Gardening as a Spiritual Practice #4: Letting Go

Gardening Letting Go

Weather is a BIG letting go. You have absolutely NO control over the weather. None. Zero. ZIP. Last year, the weather woes included a brilliantly warm and sunny March, a freezing killing cold in April-May, a searing hot and dry June, July, and August. The water bill for irrigating was huge; the fruit harvest was miserly, as was the corn harvest (that the raccoons didn't get); and the perennial beds were less than spectacular. But, if you could irrigate, the other veggies did fine. We filled the freezer with tomato sauce, beans, broccoli, butternut squash and gave away tons more.

This year has been the summer of WET. Rain, rain, rain and then, hey, let's rain some more. Mold grew everywhere, even indoors on my kitchen cabinets! One day we had 12 tomato plants. Seven days later, they were ALL DEAD. Late blight had infected every single one of them, and they had to be pulled, bagged and thrown out. Even the "volunteers" that sprouted up in the compost pile got it. No lovely sweet tomatoes with grilled steak. No BLT's. No tomato sauce for the winter. (Of course that's all silly. Right up the street I can buy organic tomatoes and anything else I want. It's just that ..... me, me, me..... I couldn't get them from MY garden. Boo hoo!) The potatoes began to get late blight too, but not before I could pull and harvest a meager number of them. Nothing to do. Ah well. Letting go.

Bugs and disease offer more opportunities to let go. If you are of the organic persuasion, black spot and infestations of insects have the same sort of sweep. You do "due diligence" by inspecting your plants regularly, but when certain bad bugs or fungus appear, you are limited in what you can or want to do. Letting go of having perfect plants, perfect fruits.

My father was an organic gardener long before it was trendy. His philosophy was, "if it lives, good --- if it doesn't live, eh".  Now, that is the ultimate "letting go" attitude. He'd prepare the gardens in the spring with worm-filled compost, plant the seeds/seedlings, pay minimal attention to them all summer, harvest and rejoice in what he got out of it at the end of the season, prepare the compost piles for the next year, and relax over the winter, getting ready to start again. Not bad. Keeping it simple. Nice.

Spiritual Letting Go
Woven into most of what I have learned about letting go is a balance between effort and release. It doesn't mean one turns into mush and just floats around willy-nilly. But one does have to dig down and find out what is at the core of one's heart and stay true to that... exerting an effort that is not too tight, not too loose... suspending judgements about appearances... looking for the blessings in disguise... using one's heart-sense as a rudder to guide the flow.

Letting go seems to be a universal element of any spiritual path. Let go of anger. Let go of resentment. Let go of pride/envy/hurt/greed/on-and-on-and-on..and on.
Letting go of wanting what you don't have...
letting go of having what you don't want!
...daily
...moment to moment.

Letting go in the garden helps me practice letting go of these bigger things in life. It's an awareness practice... noticing tendencies... recognizing habits of mind. Releasing the tendency to bathe too long in the agony of things gone bad or the ecstasy of the victories. Finding a way to accept and savor it all without squeezing the life out of it.

Gardening as a Spiritual Practice #3: Composting

To everything, turn, turn, turn...

There is a season, turn, turn, turn...

And a time for every purpose under heaven.

lyric by Pete Seeger based on the Book of Ecclesiastes

Composting in the Garden
Where DID the summer go? Yeah, astronomically it is summer until September 21 and the autumnal equinox, but no one told the trees and the birds out here at Mellow Meadows that. Rose breasted grosbeaks are gone. Swallows (both kinds) are outta' here. So have the wrens and the red winged blackbirds. Hummingbirds will be next to go. They are loading up on sweet nectar to fuel their trip. Ash trees are turning yellow. A type of maple my kids used to call the "skunk" tree have begun to turn red right down the middle. And in the veggie garden, the plants are either turning yellow and withering (tops of onions, cukes, zucchini), or they are pumping out flowers-that-will-never-have-time-to-fruit like crazy in a last ditch effort to reproduce (patty pan squash, beans, eggplant). Day lilies, echinacea, hostas are starting to look straggly, as if they are nearing a certain death. Other flowering plants like marigolds, nasturtiums, a fragrant late blooming white clematis, and chrysanthemums are in sync with those crazy veggies trying to set more and more and more seed with gorgeous brilliant blooms.

Nope, summer is history. The Fall Campaign has begun!

It is time to put the garden to bed. Yesterday, I ripped out the bean plants by their roots, snipped them into pieces and tossed the pieces into the compost box. EVERYTHING goes into that compost box. It is a magic place where slimy vegetable garbage from the kitchen and plant parts are turned into garden gold with a little bit of aged cow manure. Leaves, stems, roots if they are tender and small.... it all gets chopped up and popped in. We have a mini-garbage can on the kitchen counter and throw in all the coffee grounds, peelings, cores, pits, tips, rinds, and skins. Once a day it gets tossed in the compost box along with droppings from the chicken coop.

Most of the plants are pretty easy to break up into bits. Corn, on the other hand, requires an ax! Yeah, baby, its CHOP CHOP CHOP time for the corn stalks. There is something deeply satisfying about wielding an ax...very therapeutic... so, although it is hard work, it is not a task I try to avoid. We love the taste of freshly picked and quickly cooked organic corn, but bemoan the fact that we only get 1-2 cobs per stalk. And then there are the raccoons who also have a love-love-LOVE relationship with our corn. They seem to be able to sense when the kernels are at their sweetest... that's when they sneak into the garden (not noticeably under the fence or over the fence...I think they must know how to fly), push over the plants, peel back the husk, and nibble nibble nibble out those choice morsels. No arrangement of traps, no enticement into a have-a-heart, no discouragement at all stops those critters. When the corn is ripening, there are always raccoon ravaged plants that get chopped up along with the ones we harvest.

Mr. Wonderful helped a local lady earlier this year by removing a large manure pile from the property she was trying to sell. I guess she and her broker didn't see that manure pile as an asset! Too bad for them.... it's ours now! We layer the garden debris with the manure until it is full. Yep, shoveling shit is not a metaphor out here, it is part of the daily work in the garden. The manure is an essential part of the composting process supplying nutrients, heat, microbes, and worms. Our bodies get stronger and stronger as we pull, snip, chop plant parts and shovel manure. Next spring, after a nice long winter rest, our bodies will get back in shape as we shovel the garden gold out of the compost box into the veggie and flower beds.

Composting as a Spiritual Practice
I can't help but think of the composting process metaphorically, spending as much time as I do engaged in the actual work. Years ago, during a particularly difficult period in my life, I was fortunate to come across the work of Brother David Steindl-Rast (Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer: An Approach to Life in Fullness). He proposed that it is not happy people who are grateful, but rather it is grateful people who are happy. In his view, when one can see all aspects of what is given in one's life as a gift, the doorway to happiness is opened.... that radical acceptance of "what is" and the ability to see the gift in "what is" has the power to transform the mundane (my worries, my problems, my fears.... me, me, ME)  into the magical (how might I use this to help others, what is the hidden blessing, understanding - ah yes, this is how others feel).... it transforms suffering or sorrow into gratitude and gladness. Brother David is not the only person who has had this insight and shared it with us. Many others from a variety of faiths have come to this understanding. Having an "attitude of gratitude" is the essence, in my view, of composting as a spiritual practice.

Radical acceptance of WHAT IS.... being able to see what is given as a gift.
YIKES.
Most of can easily do this when things are going well. Yeah,.... 'I got a raise because I work hard and deserve it'... 'I am physically fit and healthy'.... 'My children are all doing great in school'. Grateful for those blessings?? SURE! But what about the darker side of WHAT IS?   'I lost my job and haven't been able to find another'.... 'I am addicted to drugs or alcohol and have exhausted all my resources'... 'My long time spouse left me for another'. Those moments of greatest challenge are exactly the moments when composting can help... when the "shit" of life can become the fuel for transformation. Just like the real thing, spiritual composting isn't easy, nor is it immediate. It takes honest effort, time, and then some more time to turn garbage into gold. Patience.

All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well! 

(Julian of Norwich 1342-1416)