Gardening Benefits

"Every day is one more reminder from Mother Nature that I'm not in control." 

- Joe Lamp'l creator of Joe Gardener  https://joegardener.com/about/

                                        

Gardening provides a way to practice acceptance beyond perfectionism. No perfect garden exists. Bugs and birds eat plants and poke holes into leaves. Creatures come in to nibble. Weather challenges. Plants grow faster than others, then just wilt. Others sprout and create color and scents. 

Change in a garden occurs all the time. A garden helps us learn to go as it grows. Joe Lamp'l says, "pursuit of perfection is a waste of time—especially in the garden. So don't bother!"

Acceptance in the garden or in other situations does not mean giving up. We bring our best efforts to what we can control and release the rest. With gardening that means "preparing the best environment you can possibly make for your plants," says Lamp'l, "and allowing nature to take it from there. Your garden (like your life) is in bigger hands than yours." 

With a growth mindset, we're constantly learning. When something doesn't work out as planned, it serves as a learning opportunity rather than a "failure." Mistakes mean more learning and more growing. We can even look forward to our mistakes and create onward. 

"I love making mistakes," said Lamp'l, "because I look at them as a chance to learn something new. Through those mishaps, you can understand what happened and why, and you can be empowered to relate that learning to new things." 

The Japanese expression "shinrin-yoku" means "forest bathing." It captures the experience of being immersed in green. Research has found submersion in natural landscapes helps with depression and illness recovery. Looking out on a green landscape lessens anxiety and promotes other positive effects. 

Doctors have started writing prescriptions for "green exercise." This includes nature walks which reduce blood pressure and mood improvement more than strolls long the street.

Mindful presence happens in a garden. The garden serves as a protected place where we practice doing what we're doing; focused in the moment.

Lamp'l described finding his "Zen moment" in his garden, where he tunes in to his experience.  

"That's sacred time for me," he said. "When I'm out there weeding, I want to hear the birds."

A garden provides a place to move away from negative news or computer activity and experience nature's offerings.  

With vegetables grown there, a garden provides fresh and healthy foods. Studies in this area tend to find benefits of the "Mediterranean" diet and similar types, which emphasize consuming minimally processed whole foods. Items that your garden will yield. Growing your own food provides an added positive.

Connections with others happen in a garden offering advice and sharing benefits of techniques.

Make a plan to start a garden. If you enjoy one new, keep it growing.

Begin with flowers and plants. Add others as you discover scents and colors of interest.  

Bring the outside inside. 

Add greens and blooms to all your rooms.

More on gardening: 

Joe Gardener's site:  https://joegardener.com/about/

Toni Gattone, The Lifelong Gardener, Gardening with Ease and Joy at Any Age.

Follow the Brush

“The most precious thing in life is its uncertainty.”  Kenko

In the 14th century, a poet and Buddhist monk named Yoshido Kenko wrote thoughts on life, death, nature, manners, humility, and simplicity.  He lived in exile at a cottage where he composed his essays.

Kenko believed in 'zuihitsu' - follow the brush - as a method of composition. He painted thoughts as they came to him on scraps of paper, then attached them to his cottage walls. They survived through the centuries by chance.  A poet friend collected them from the walls and Tsurezuregusa (Essays in Idleness) became a part of Japanese literature.

Kenko felt leaving something incomplete gives room for growth. He disliked perfection, believing asymmetry and irregularity became better goals in life. His imagery included moons in the clouds, cherry blossoms strewn and faded on the earth. He admired the uncertainty of a branch about to blossom.

Here are three of Kenko's views.
                     
A certain recluse, I know not who, once said that no bonds attached him to this life, and the only thing he would regret leaving was the sky.

Are we only to look at flowers in full bloom, at the moon when it is clear?

To sit alone in the lamplight with a book spread out before you, and hold intimate converse with men of unseen generations—such is a pleasure beyond compare.

How will you follow the brush today?

The Whimsy of Orchids

Orchids beguile in a variety of ways to attract pollinators. Their ploys seduce, attract, and hoodwink prey. They imitate fragrances and also present unpleasant odors while pulsing their landing platforms. Orchids mimic enemies, sexual partners, and phony nests.

The deceptions become a diversion for only the orchids' benefit. Promises of reward serve only to get the flowers fertilized. The pollinator gets nothing in return.

In 1862, Charles Darwin felt a fascination for orchids and studied the orchid's seductive process. He published, On the Various Contrivances by Which British and Foreign Orchids Are Fertilized by Insects. The book became a best seller before the publication of his Origin of Species. 




Orchids display their attractiveness even in the Arctic Circle. More orchid species exist
(26,000 -30,000) than species of mammals, reptiles, and birds combined.

Orchids (family Orchidaceae) provide sticky packets of pollen to entice bees and wasps that do the most work. 

Also flies, butterflies, moths, and birds get seduced by the process. 

Mosquitoes, ants, beetles, and small animals feel attracted by the orchid's siren call.

Reciprocity does occur. Even though the pollinators receive no reward, those of us who love the colors, shapes, and scents do benefit from the whimsy of orchids.

Enjoy their behavior.

The Light of Self-Awareness

"A quiet mind is all you need. As the sun on rising makes the world active, so does self-awareness affect changes in the mind. In the light of calm and steady self-awareness, inner energies wake up and work miracles." - Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Human emotions and moods shuffle in shifts and shapes like the glass pieces in a kaleidoscope. Every day we choose a response to the imagery received. Some days exhilaration energizes our choices.

Other days our temperament and attitude may cause perplexity and irritation. The edges and colors re-arrange into patterns of behavior to view, focus, and interpret. Vibrancy and reflection appear at each turn of life's cylinder.

Knowing oneself feels mysterious and requires effort.

What to do?  Self-awareness  requires us to notice thoughts, fantasies, opinions, and judgments.


Take advantage of potential by staying present with the mosaics of each moment.

Engage with emotions and permit them to shine their messages without a reaction.

Let them collide into a variety of patterns and opportunities.

When observing the messages. Stop and take a breath. Move on with the lessons they present.

Self-compassion begins with the breath. Stay with it to relax the body head to toe.

Relent to the feelings of restlessness. Focus on what occurs moment-to-moment.

Watching the collisions of the mind's pieces creates the most challenge. Try not to judge or assign right or wrong to the feelings and thoughts that arrive.

In this way you can address anger, passion and pride. Let them take turns on the kaleidoscope. 

Observe without self-deception the aspects of your personality and behavioral choices.

Push borders with playful honesty. Take on tenacity with a sense of humor to deepen self-awareness. Discover ways to avoid distress.

Acknowledge aversions and cravings.  Make different turns of the scope next time.

Sift the mind's mosaics like a kaleidoscope. 

Benefit from all the dimensions and light of self-awareness.

Happy Thanksgiving

“For each new morning with its light, for rest and shelter of the night, for health and food, for love and friends, for everything thy goodness sends. I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and new.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Research confirms the importance of Gratitude when felt and also shared with others. Subjects were asked to write their gratitudes. After ten weeks in the study, they exhibited major increases in their happiness scores, felt more optimistic, and better about their lives. 

They also reported exercising more and had fewer visits to the doctor following the experiment. The second group wrote about daily problems and situations that left them unhappy. These individuals felt comparably unhappy as a result.

"If thankfulness were a drug, it would be the world's best-selling product with a health maintenance indication for every major organ system," said Dr. P. Murali Doraiswamy, head of the division of biologic psychology at Duke University Medical Center. Oxytocin, the social bonding hormone, floods the brain and body with euphoria during moments of happiness and feelings of security that can result from a hug.

Enjoy a Grateful Thanksgiving Day.

The Day Before Thanksgiving

The day before Thanksgiving provides time to ponder and celebrate gratitude for life's gifts: family, friendships, and discoveries in each moment. 

We live in a world of wonder and uncertainty with the ability to bring balance through writing. Give thanks for each challenge as it turns into an exploration. Celebrate your creativity with gratitude.

Write a thank you note to anyone who has influenced your life. Then, thank someone mentally and self-reflect on his or her importance to your happiness. 

During the day, thank individuals for their smiles or kindness toward you. 

Keep a journal to express and share thoughts about emotional and physical gifts you have received.  

Consider a negative situation that provided guidance and insight. How did it offer feelings of gratitude?

List your gratitudes and explore the specifics of why they made you happy. 

Grow buoyant, float, and fly. A bit of humor conquers all.  

Appreciate what’s offered regardless of the form. 

Consider the three monkeys' message.

Share your attention to detail and have a grateful day.

Train to Write

 

As a four-year-old, I attended a football game at the Rose Bowl with my father. We settled into seats with hot dogs, peanuts, and Delaware punch. Excitement filled the stadium and rippled throughout my body.

My father's first advice, "Watch reactions. Don't just follow the ball." During warm ups, he pointed out ways coaches related to the players and how they responded. He talked a lot about the intensity of training that went into the game. He also encouraged my writing training in similar ways.

Training to write begins way before pen meets paper or fingers tickle keys. Making a friend of curiosity initiates a first step of preparation.Writers need to chase experience. Nourishing wonder involves all the senses to receive transmissions from life's stimuli.

How do you train to write?

Investigate ways to stretch and train before writing. Squint and notice how it changes your perspective.

Delve into discoveries by doing what you don't usually do. Try different points of view.

Listen to music of all types.

Develop curiosity

Find your playfulness.

Practice imaginative thinking by a search for nuances and connections.

Notice reactions to situations. Investigate cause and effect. 

When watching sports like a football game, go beyond a focus on the ball. 

Observe the body language, reactions, and responses of players. In what ways do they anticipate way before a play unravels?  How to they hide responses in body language?

Nurture awareness by seeking adventure with a child's eyes. Let go with no agenda or time keeping for a set period each day.

Questions add another dimension to training. What amuses? What confuses?  Which mysteries need investigation? Let self-discovery push to the edges. Remain open to possibilities.

Choose another art form to cross-train your writing. Draw or paint. Dance to enhance movement and rhythm. 

Develop a yoga practice for breathing and balance. 

Take advantage of life's disruptions. Use them for story.

Become restless and relentless. Then write about it.

Writing goes way beyond the basics of grammar and syntax. 

Let sports inspire new approaches. 

Start your training today.

Explore the Moment

"Whatever has happened, whatever is going to happen in the world, it is the living moment that contains the most excitement, this moment in which we touch life and all that contains the sum of the excitement, this moment in which we touch all the energy of the past and future. Here is all the developing greatness of the dream of the world, the pure flash of momentary imagination." - Muriel Rukeyser 

Catch a glimpse of a bird in action. 

Find faces in floral activity.

Slide your imagination into the sea.

Examine the thrill of flight.

Meet life's challenges and treat them as Possibilities.  

To Honor My Father

 

My father left earth 43 years ago on November 22. I shared his love, creativity, and friendship for 31 years. He continues to inspire each day. I hear his laugh, his lyrical call, "Oooh Hoo," when he wanted my attention or entered a room to find me. When I turn a corner, often a phantom whiff of Old Spice brings me joy.

When I search in a mirror, his features beam.

My father loved to take photographs. I watched, eager to learn how to capture moments as we traveled around the world.

Before my eighth birthday, I asked for a Brownie camera. I had seen the square, brown one that would fit in my hand. Also, it could hang around my neck on a braided string. I showed my father photos from American Girl magazine.

The S.S. President Monroe became our home on my birthday that year. My father gave me a square package. When I opened my gift, I discovered a Leica camera. 

A pout revealed my disappointment as I set it aside.  

"Come on Petsy, get your camera and let's go on deck," my father sighed and grabbed his camera and mine.

Once we reached the top deck, he positioned the camera in my hands. He moved it to my eyes so the view finder would reveal a capture of the sea rough with white caps and animated clouds above. Then he released it to me.

I clicked on and on. Flying fish presented their show to my delight. Then it seemed the photo roll had ended.

"What happened?" I asked.

As my father examined the camera, he discovered the cap still on the lens. 

"Really?" His anger flared as he removed the cap. 

I cried as we descended to our room. He showed stern frustration I'd not experienced from him before.

Later, as the sky dimmed, he suggested we return to the top deck. He installed more film, storing the cap in his pocket. 

Click. Click. Click our cameras sung. He spoke of the sun as the "great ball of fire."  As the clouds danced in red and orange hues, he pointed out sky dragons at play.

As we moved around to take in the clouds and colors, our bonding moment began. He shared more stories of creatures in the sky and encouraged me to find shapes to turn into stories. 

Once I worried when he needed to stay in bed with the flu. He encouraged me, "No worries. I can't leave till my work on earth is done." 

I believe he had much more work left to do.  Today, the world would benefit from his exuberance.

We continue to share sunsets and I create stories.

Tie the Memories

  

I let go of a yellow balloon 

my father puffed to life

He tied it to my wrist

 

I untied it 

and my fingers clutched

slippery air

 

It floated

beyond limbs of sycamores

to circus animal clouds

 

He smiled when I asked, "Why?"

We'd talked about that before.

 

We found merry-go-rounds

in Paris and Kyoto.

Laughed atop a Ferris wheel 

stuck in Brighton beach

 

I burned the lamb chops

in adolescent heart break

He put on more mint jelly

 

No answers in corridors

gray as shrouds

when his twilight spread

on raven wings

I let go the string

this tug more desperate

than his breath.