Tag: gardens

Wednesday’s Whimsies

+ Yesterday, I texted my husband that I had written a blog post. He told me that he loved that I had given myself permission to just blog on whim. Kelly Corrigan recently interviewed Christy Turlington Burns (supermodel from the 80s) and also the current creator of a series called The Art of Recuperation, on Kelly’s podcast. Christy said this in their conversation, “When movement feels like freedom and not duty, your feet will carry you further.” Do things because you want to do them, not because you “should” do them. And if there are things that you think that you absolutely have to do/should do, find the “want” behind the should. I will go to my annual physicals, because I want to remain healthy. I will go to work, because I want to feel financially secure. There are a lot more things in life that are self-imposed “shoulds” that you really don’t have to do, if you consciously consider everything. (Everything in life is really just a set of actions/energies and the consequences of those actions/energies) And after coming off of a busy time period that now, allows me to catch up on some truly delicious rest and sleep and recuperation, this quote from the conversation makes a lot of sense, too: “Not all that tires depletes. Some exhaustions feed the soul.” My soul has been fed incredibly delicious experiences all year long and now I am really enjoying some contented, deeply experienced, rest. (long, happy sigh)

+ I read this quote by Eckhart Tolle yesterday: “Boredom, anger, sadness, or fear are not “yours”, not personal. They are conditions of the human mind. They come and go. Nothing that comes and goes is you.” Don’t say, “I’m depressed, or I’m angry, or even, I’m happy.” For you are not those things! You are feeling depressed, or you are feeling angry or you are feeling happy and you probably feel these various feelings and many more feelings, every day, throughout each day. YOU are the peaceful, timeless observer inside of yourself who experiences your bodily sensations, who notices your thoughts, who experiences your everyday escapades, who feels your emotions. YOU are a tiny spark of Source/Creation/Life/God/Spirit experiencing being alive as a human being on Earth at this moment. Live fully in all your powerful glory. Experience it all and know that all is well.

+ We were boating with friends of ours over the weekend and we saw the effects and changes caused by the hurricanes on the beaches and the barrier islands by our town. It was humbling and yes, much of the human created parking lots, and structures and widened beaches have been devastated and need to be repaired, but the natural beauty remains constant. No matter the changes it goes through, nature looks beautiful in every cycle of its life. (as do we – we are part of nature) We saw several dolphins, a pelican decided to fly along beside our boat (similar to that recent car commercial where the bird is flying in unison with the car), and we had the best shelling experience that we have experienced in a long, long time. (The storms sure churned up some beauties!) No experience is ever one-dimensional.

+ I collect potheads and other garden goop. One of my regular readers, Kelly from Cali, recently asked me how Harmonia did through the hurricanes. Harmonia (the muse of my blog, you can read about her on my front blog page) remains solid, still, and beautiful and nonplussed. Here she is today with Celeste, one of my favorite potheads:

This is one of the first potheads that I ever brought home. I never named her. She looks like the masthead of a noble ship:

And here are Bert and Ernie, who are so kind to hold our sunscreen and bug spray. They were discovered in an old barn in my grandfather’s tiny hometown of Windber, Pennsylvania:

And this is Garden Girl. I recently met her maker, a self-proclaimed “yardist”, but that is a story for another day (or check my archives. I have written about him before):

Don’t you just love people who can bring life and whimsy to materials like clay and rock and concrete? They are creators. We are all creators and we are co-creating this world every day. Let’s make it a wonderful one.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Ruler

This is the year for Ixora in my neighborhood. Ixora is a shrub (also known as West Indian Jasmine) that has the brightest orange flowers that you ever wanted to see. (Do you remember “Neon Orange” of the ’80s? Ixora’s flowers are a slightly darker, sophisticated, yet poppin’ off version of that color.) This year the Ixora is having its “breakout year.” This year, in our neck of the woods, Ixora is the Taylor Swift of pop, the Michael Jordan of basketball, the Gordon Ramsay of cooks, the Frank Sinatra of blue eyes. And of course, we don’t have any Ixora in our yard. We do not own one Ixora bush. Nada one. This year, our yard looks a little bland and “meh” compared to all of our surrounding neighbors who have rows and rows of Ixora shrubs accenting their homes from every angle. Even my bougainvillea has decided to have an “off year.” Why bloom? That takes work.

I commented, trying to hide my jealousy, to my neighbor across the street, about just how amazing his Ixora looks this year. He said, “I know. I even texted my ex-wife a picture to ask her if she ever remembered the Ixora looking so lovely, when she still lived here.” Hmmm. Now, was that just a little passive-aggressive move really necessary?

No, the truth is, the Ixora has never looked this lovely. It has never bloomed so hard. It has never popped off like this since we have lived here for over a decade. Ixora is having its year. The conditions must be in perfect alignment, because Ixora is having its own shining moment in the sun. Interestingly, the word “Ixora” means “ruler, or lord.” This year, Ixora rules. It’s Ixora’s day in the sun.

I’ve noticed this particular phenomenon every year with our plants. It’s almost like they happily take turns with the spotlight. “This is your year, succulents. Strut your stuff.” “Cannas, you’re looking taller and showier than ever, this year. You bloom, baby!” Gardens, even if you never change the plants, invariably look a little bit different in every single season, in every single year. The plants seem to give each other room to grow, and space to bloom. The individual plants don’t seem to compete for attention. They do their best every year, with the conditions which they find themselves in. And while each year, a particular plant does seem to have its own showcase moment, the others all around it, are what help to make its individual beauty look so amazing. The other plants surround it with their own beauty, and together the overall garden is what makes for the true “feast for the eyes.”

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

2961. What excites you about the future?

For Your Ear

It always delights me when a friend, or another reader of my blog, claims one of my posts, as absolutely theirs – just the words/messages that they were meant to read at that particular moment. I firmly believe that all of us are just channels for Creative Intelligence. So, yes, I believe that it is true – if something on my blog, resonates deeply with you, the message is meant for you, and Creative Intelligence was just using my writing as a way to get the message to you, and to bring it to your conscious awareness.

There is a lot written about finding one’s purpose. The problem that arises most often with “finding one’s individual purpose” is self-acceptance. We are conditioned to believe that a certain type of person is ideal, and we try to be that “ideal” human whether it be a job title, or other titles/functions which we hold in our lives such as spouse, parent, child, sibling, friend, neighbor, congregant, group member, etc. Instead of listening to our own deepest callings and desires to do things in our own unique way, we live up to flimsy images, and not to the depths of the yearnings of our own individual hearts and souls.

As I mentioned yesterday, the flowers in our yard are particularly beautiful this spring. The blooms are bursting out proudly. The hibiscus is out-loud everywhere, the orchids are struggling to hold their enormous, healthy blooms up elegantly, and the bougainvillea went from almost-died-from-frostbite, to you-had-better-trim-me-up-soon-if-you-want-to-be-able-to-find-the-front door. All of this happened in what seemed like a matter of just a couple of days. You get the picture. My overall point is that I am so utterly grateful that all of our plants are so robustly, and proudly blooming, and being so fully and completely, the ultimate version of themselves. The combination of all of them together, by each being their individual best and brightest version of themselves, is breathtaking to behold. This is how it goes in life. It is never just one type of flower that makes an amazing garden. There is not just one dancer nor one singer who makes the whole of a sensational, Tony awarded Broadway show. There is not just one spice nor ingredient that makes an amazingly delicious dish.

Don’t be ashamed of the channel which Creative Intelligence has chosen for you. My begonias are not sad that they aren’t wildflowers. They are doing “begonia” this year like I have never seen them do it before. Be honest with yourself. What do you love to do? What are you being called to do? What activity do you lose yourself in, when you are doing it? Creative Intelligence wants to be able to pour Itself into the channel that It created you to be. Mourn what you wish you were, or you think that you should be, and put that aside. Stop being exhausted and depressed from pretending to be something that you aren’t. Be true to your own individual calling. And yes, this message is meant for YOU to read it, to absorb it, and then, to go be it.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

The Only Thing

Happy Valentine’s Day. Today is the day to celebrate love. Acts made with love, and acts made with the absence of love, are what have created all of history. Thankfully, love still prevails. Most of the actions taken in our homes, and in our communities, and in our cities, and in our countries, and in our world, still have the basis of the energy of love. Love is what sustains us. Love is the only thing that will sustain us.

Today, let’s all of us plant seeds of love wherever we go. Focus on the good. Focus on what we love about our family, our friends, our neighbors, our everyday lives and ourselves. Show love to our family, to our friends, to our neighbors, and to ourselves. Appreciate the good in our everyday routines and in the lives we have created for ourselves. Be in awe of these people and creatures and things and vocations that make up the days of our lives. Feel love for our family, for our friends, for our neighbors, for our coworkers, and for ourselves. Allow our family, our friends, our neighbors and ourselves to love us. Let love in. Keep the doors of our hearts open. It’s a gift to feel and to show love for someone or something, and to also feel the joy of them receiving this love gratefully. Celebrate the love that we have for the lives which we have created for ourselves, and for the voracious, abundant life teeming all around us. Love is overflowing and robust. Love teems. Today, on this day in which we publically celebrate love, let’s all plant some more seeds of love, to keep this Garden of Life teeming and growing and blooming and blessing all creatures who are sustained by the everlasting energy of Love. Love is the only thing that will sustain us forevermore.

(And I can’t let this Valentine’s Day pass without saying how much I love to write this daily blog, and how much it means to me, for you, my readers and witnesses, to be part of it. I love my blog. And I love you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.)

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Then When?

“Desire is an ache, but it’s so much better than the numbness of wanting nothing.” – Holiday Mathis

I like to read Holiday Mathis’s horoscopes on a daily basis. She is an excellent writer and my horoscope always reads like a riddle. The above was my horoscope the other day. Even if you think astrology is hogwash, I recommend reading Holiday Mathis’ column. I always glean something from it. I usually think about what unique wisdom she has written about, throughout my days.

This quote of hers reminded me of the other night, over the Christmas break, in which my family all settled into watching Jerry Seinfeld’s latest comedy special. Jerry Seinfeld is worth 950 million dollars. As he adeptly states in the beginning of his special, he is not doing that special because he has to do it. Obviously, Jerry Seinfeld desires to do comedy stand-up routines. It’s probably one of his greatest loves in life.

Sometimes we get so caught up in the rote quality of our lives and our routines that sometimes it seems like a thick fog of numbness can set in. This pandemic, particularly in the beginning of it all, brought us all down to basic necessities of survival. I know that I personally have felt some numbness throughout this scourge. There were many days that I felt like I was just going through the motions. But at the same time, the pandemic has also helped to give us some real clarity, as to what is truly important to each of us, and also as a collective, in many regards. The pandemic has been a “pin pointer”, helping us to get real clear on what actually moves each of us, at our cores, by showing us what we like about our current lives, and what we desperately miss.

Most of us who live in Western cultures are way up the slope on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Most of us are not worrying about where our next meal is going to come from. At the very top of Maslow’s needs pyramid is “Self Actualization”. Self Actualization is described as “the desire to become the most that one can be.” According to Abram Maslow, when all of our other needs are met (food, shelter, clothing, love, esteem, recognition, health, intimacy, etc.) the only other need that is left for us, is the the need to fulfill the desire to become the most that one can be.

We were all built for different purposes. What motivates and excites you, may not interest me at all, and that’s okay. That’s what makes this world so interesting and full of variety. To become self-actualized, we have to become sleuths to find out about what’s possibly been lying dormant in our own DNA. We have to search past the fog of our own every day automated “doingness”, to get to the light and the beacon of our own deepest longings, and yearnings and inclinations and desires.

All of our flowers will look different in this Earthly garden. It’s the variety of plants in any garden, and how they grow and thrive together, that makes the garden so incredibly, breathtakingly beautiful. And every flower blooms in its own time, which interestingly makes the garden, something all together different, yet still achingly beautiful, in each of its seasons, year in and year out. If the garden is to reach its fullest potential, it is our own individual jobs, to push our own little closed buds, to be brave enough to open up and to bloom brightly, and take up our own space in the sunshine that bathes us all. We must do something with those seeds of desire which are purposefully implanted in each of us. If not now, then when?

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.