Old notes....BOULDERS TO DUST

January 23, 2013

Part of the border plants died.  The Martha Washington geraniums have taken over the entire bedded area around the statue of the Buddha.  Gardens teach us to let go.  In science and nature,  perhaps since the writings of Heraclitus, the idea that “Nature abhors a vacuum” is a cornerstone construct.  It reminds us that life is always shifting around on us.  Empty spaces get filled in the real world.  Also things disappear, die or become dormant.  You cannot be a gardener, or a naturalist and not know this on a deeply physical level. 

Animal trails through the wilderness are not straight.  Trees are not symmetrical, and we cannot take one step without seeing a dying life form, a leaf, a bone or the rich loam of decaying life.  Although in one lifetime we may not perceive it, but too, the mountains are slowly letting go of their shape and making boulders into dust.

One of the subtle and persistent experiences of being in the natural world is to relax.  We are small again.  We are just a piece in the bigger thrust and pull of the universe.  Life out there is simple.   That which adapts and gets the right nurturance survives, until it doesn’t.  Simple.  Dying isn’t scary, wrong or evil, it just is.  It is part of it.  Part of the wide screen, the molten apricot sky, or the water dropping thousands of feet down the hillside to the deep caverns and cool riverbanks below.  We belong.  We are here for a piece of that long time, and then we are not.

Some of our interior borders will be dying off right now, and other parts of us will be taking over a zone of our consciousness.  We do have the ability to prune things back and to replant, but sometimes it is just interesting to see where the big spin is taking us.  We spend so much of our time trying to control things.  We get used to comfort.  We want things our way.  Nothing is wrong with that. Work it.   Get some things you want.  Make some space for yourself.  But don’t let that take over your experience of things.  Learn to sit back and watch.  Be still.  Give time for things to emerge, for relationships to develop, for ideas to reach maturity.  Let time edit the process.   Meditation helps with that, because it is scheduled reverie but reverie nonetheless.  It is a moment of not acting, but just observing. 

Oh yes, that border plant has died, but look at those Iris!











Coming attractions:   A few Haiku poems that came in from last posting....stay tuned.