Life & Spirit | mulberryshoots

May 25, 2012

time . . .

I’ve been thinking about time lately. How to plan for the next run of time. Because I’m approaching a birthday in December that seems a little high in count compared to how I feel about myself inside, I’ve decided to bring the outside of me more in balance with the inside. So, juicing is a new routine. I prepared green smoothies before but it seemed to be fattening with all the fruit and bananas involved. Now, it’s just juice with vegetables that fill my refrigerator with their bulk: kale, spinach, celery, carrots, green apples, cucumbers.

Instead of fasting on juice only, I’m thinking about juicing for breakfast and lunch, then preparing a light meal for dinner with fresh fish, vegetables and salad. Maybe some charcoal grilled teriyaki chicken thighs like those we had the other night. This way, I don’t have to give up cooking and trying out new recipes or ways to cook, which is something I enjoy doing every day.

stand of siberian iris

Thinking about time makes me think of “carpe diem”–just do what you really want to do and more, each day. But don’t go crazy. Toward that end, I found a new pair of Merrell sneakers, taupe suede, white mesh and apricot-white colored shoestrings like the ones I saw on a young woman with a backpack at the airport last week. Just having them on feels good and makes me want to start walking more. Think I’ll go by Cape Hedge beach this weekend and walk along the shore during low tide. Haven’t been there in awhile (see “ashes to ashes“.)

I also wonder how long I’ll last. I see lots of older people these days it seems. Last weekend, I met a woman in her nineties, who had the most joyful smile and calm manner even though she had a splint bandaged on one leg, her ankle swollen. She was going to visit her husband in the assisted living unit nearby later that morning. In her small home, she had her golden retriever and her Steinway grand piano rebuilt by G. about ten years ago. Plantings outside each dwelling were lovingly cared for — I saw a woman planting some flowers where her Dad wanted them in his front yard, next to the home that M.J. lives in.

iris by front driveway

oriental poppies in back of the house

So, today, because it’s been drizzly and grey, perfect weather for planting, I’m going to find a good place that is part shade for the two Japanese primroses and the perennial dianthus that will surround them in the front garden. And also plant the five flats of morning glories that go in every year in front of the barn which climb the strings to the second floor deck where their color illuminates our mornings in the fall (see “one day at a time“.)

morning glory seedlings

But first, I’m going to make my “mean, green juice” (kale, cucumber, green apples, ginger, lemon, carrots) to give me energy for the rest of the morning. And maybe I’ll think more about time and what’s important about it in the way that I want to spend my days.

japanese primula and dianthus

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May 22, 2012

“carpe diem!” . . .

Did you watch the final episode of “House” last night on television? I thought it was ironic in its exposition about the meaning of life (although some sections ran a little too langourously.) And when the platitudes came forth at the funeral home, you said to yourself, “surely, they can’t end it this way,” . . .and lo and behold, they didn’t. Phew!

Remember in the beginning of the episode when they wondered why House was so happy? and he said “Carpe Diem!” referring to the theme in “Dead Poet’s Society” –(in which Robert Sean Leonard [Wilson] played a lead character who dies)? What a brilliant counter-reference to insert right in the beginning. One thing about watching this series is how much the viewer has to pay attention to what’s going on and what’s said.

“Carpe Diem” in Latin means “Seize the Day” and for 5 more months, that’s just what House and Wilson will do together. That’s the real outcome of the 1) last episode, 2) the series,and also 3) an incantation or final message from the writers to all the viewers too on how to live life to the fullest . . . a brilliant trifecta by the “House” production team!

We should do so well with our own moments, don’t you think?
Carpe Diem!

May 16, 2012

home again . . .

I’ve been visiting family who live in Minneapolis and have been away from home for a few days.

It’s been a time to get to know each other better, the little one playing with me on these last days rather than playing by herself in my presence.

Connection is an intangible spark, her eyes lighting up when she sees me after a nap. When I speak to G. on my cellphone, Josie listens intently to his voice and says softly, “hi, wa-wa.” After we hang up, she picks up the paw of her new stuffed puppy dog and waves goodbye at the cell phone, now still. These heart-filled moments float by like the flicker of light from lightning bugs on a soft, warm evening.

Life is indeed long, I think to myself, when we experience moments of sweet innocence and tender gestures of love by so young a spirit. Or maybe her spirit is wiser than her years.

We seem to go through many phases of our lives: starting out in a small place, wanting a bigger one, expanding and taking on more responsibilities and financial burdens. Then wanting to simplify, downsize and be in a smaller place again. The tide ebbs and flows along with our wishes and desires as time goes by. Health and illness also come and go. If we are fortunate, (and luck has a lot to do with how we fare along it seems,) we may live long enough to be in a soft place where children show us fundamentals we have forgotten about, or might never have had ourselves.

We make our own homes, wherever we happen to be. And I am glad to be returning to mine today even though I am leaving this sweet girl. It’s a good time to celebrate that slice of innocent joy when I return to my own place, home again.

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May 7, 2012

for me . . .

I was remembering the other day something that an important person in my life said to me a long time ago: “don’t do it for me, do it for you.” At the time, I felt a little bit hurt because I was (and am) so used to doing for others.

Now, years later, I am still having trouble “doing it for me.” Somehow, I have kept thinking that if I can just influence others around me to change, that that’s the key to being more satisfied with my life. Tough lesson to realize once again that this is such a waste of energy and won’t ever come true.

So, now what? I’m going to start some activities that only I can do to improve things for myself. Like getting more fit. They say that less is more, right? Even I’ve been saying this often in my posts. And a red cardinal flew in front of my car again yesterday so I must be on the right track.

Time to really walk this talk. And start doing things for me.

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May 5, 2012

imperfect . . .

Sometimes I feel like I’m good at talking a good line, such as the post on “compassion” below. While in real time, I still find myself being impatient and intolerant when I’d rather be more understanding. Why is this, I wonder to myself? I “get it” intellectually about what I think is the best path to follow. But unfortunately, I’m trying to speed down that road rather than being calm and noticing the flowers in bloom along the path.

I guess you can’t change nature by nurture all the time. What I can do, however is to a)be less judgmental and harsh on myself; b) curb my impatience and c) compensate for my shortfall just by realizing that’s what it is. And let go of perfection as the standard I expect of myself all the time.

Oh, and go out to dinner together at a place here in town where the owner of the Chinese restaurant makes the homemade dumplings (shray jow) herself. Nice treat for the imperfect in life.

May 1, 2012

compassion . . .

It seems to me that we hear the word, “compassion” quite often. What does it mean exactly? And how does it work? Here’s what some say:

Compassion is a virtue — one in which the emotional capacities of empathy and sympathy (for the suffering of others) are regarded as a part of love itself, and a cornerstone of greater social interconnection and humanism — foundational to the highest principles in philosophy, society, and personhood.

Sounds pretty important doesn’t it? In our culture, it sometimes takes on religious overtones, at least when I hear the word uttered. Feeling sorry for others is one way to go, I guess, but may also carry patronizing overtones of moral superiority. Maybe the opposite of compassion is to ignore people’s suffering, perhaps because you expect everyone to take care of themselves (Republicans) or because we feel that we have too much suffering of our own already and can’t take on any more. This last thought is enticing, especially since we are living in an economic and psychologically discouraging time. How can we feel sorry for others when we feel inundated with worry and frustration ourselves?

So, let’s take a deep breath. Where are we going anyhow? Perhaps nowhere. Or not very far. Maybe we’ve done what we can in our lives and look around to see how we want to live now. We’ve been working on getting rid of regrets because they’re an anomalous way of feeling sorry for ourselves with imaginings of what might have been–the outcome of which can only be virtual fantasy. Maybe we are feeling overburdened by the problems of others which is outside of our control, but impactive nevertheless.

To have compassion, I think, requires one to be present to someone else’s suffering. Not to try to swipe it aside like windshield wipers flailing away in a rainstorm. I don’t think it’s necessary to try to alleviate it (as in altruism) because just to be present and to accept it is a big deal, it seems to me. So, not cutting and wanting to run and hide in the face of someone’s problems can be an act of compassion, perhaps. Being understanding without feeling like you have to give advice or to “fix it” is a giant step also. I have a lot of trouble not doing this all the time because my project management career in biotech was to catch and fix problems no matter who they belonged to.

On the other side of the coin, being overly cheerful in an effort to make people feel better, I think, is dishonest and a disservice to everyone. Being real and present while maintaining respect toward the other person seems to be as compassionate a way to behave as possible towards someone who is suffering or is unhappy.

While reflecting about compassion, I remembered that family behaviors I observed as a child were laced with anger, resentment and contempt. It’s helpful to notice this history, so that I can avoid falling into those patterns, just because that’s all I knew as normalcy.

If we decide we can be compassionate as described here — not running away, not trying to fix it, showing respect and being present, it might allow us to be born again. At the very least, it might help.

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April 30, 2012

pouf . . .

During our visit with Josie at the cottage, there was a well-loved old Moroccan leather hassock that we usually kept on its side near the television. It was about fourteen inches high and twenty inches in diameter, just the right proportions to support Josie’s frame. We tried encouraging her to sit in a child’s chair but to no avail. Left to her own devices, however, Josie made the leather pouf her own.

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April 28, 2012

regrets? . . .

I’ve been wondering about regrets recently. You know, what they say about living so that you won’t have any regrets. In order to do that, one has to be wise when one is young and make the right choices all the time in hindsight. Or luck into them by default.

What if when you look back on some of what I call “regret candidates” that you are mature enough now to realize that you can tick them all on your fingers as roads better off not taken? For me, they were conventional ones as I took my own path into the lonely dark of the unknown. If anything, I had a huge amount of help from the Cosmos, Helpers and any other forces able to effect synchronicity and serendipity in my life. It didn’t hurt that I was either too dumb or naive to know how close to the edge of failure I was treading the whole time either. I worked hard for a long time and I was lucky.

Now, I am getting my house in order. Painted with fresh “Navajo White” paint. And it’s not a whitewash job either. It’s a clean start, taking care of what we are already lucky enough to have in our home and for our lifestyle. Maintaining what we treasure while simplifying at the same time.

I’m also getting my head in order. To know what has been good for me and who has taken care of me when I needed it the most. And to let go of what I thought might have been better.

Regrets are just fairy tales of our imagination, aren’t they?

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April 26, 2012

spring cleanup . . .

Even though it’s been unseasonably warm this winter moving into spring, I’m catching up on some spring cleaning this week. I’ve been meaning to clean up the plant shelf where G. had brought up some gorgeous dusty rose marble planks to provide a surface for the orchids. They’ve been coming along and their bloom is still approaching its peak.

I had a grocery bag full of clippings and dead leaves from the plants, especially the maidenhair fern which had nasty, dried-up brown fronds.

maidenhair fern after repairs

I also noticed that the overheating going on inside me has abated with the wise treatments given yesterday by C., my gifted Shiatsu practitioner. A levelling and cooling off that feels really calming and steady. By next week, some ceiling repair around the skylights and painting will take place in the kitchen and living area. Benjamin Moore’s “Navajo White” paint is my favorite color and has followed me from place to place wherever I have lived. The storage closets will be cleaned out altogether and organized so that we can find cottage and Christmas things more easily. My plan is to provide a swift exit for anything that we won’t use and that we don’t need. Outdated books and CDs will be donated to the local library. E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G that remains will have its place. It has already begun to look more spare and feels as right as rain.

To top it all off, here is a photo of little Josie, lending a hand to vacuum the floor at the cottage the day that we left. Priceless!

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April 23, 2012

two kinds . . .

As I drove down Penzance Lane early this morning, returning from buying the morning papers, NYTimes and the Boston Globe, a large, dark red cardinal flew directly across my windshield. Maybe I am one of a handful of people who believes in omens and signs but I felt my heart lift when it happened. I mean, when you think about it, the bird had to launch itself exactly at a certain moment to coincide with the rate at which my car was moving forward in order for that to happen. And my spirits lifted for the day!

As I enjoyed my breakfast, I came upon an article in the NYTimes about David Hoffman, a rebel against building codes and other living requirements in Marin County, California. Mr. Hoffman has built a series of 30 structures, grows Pu-Erh tea and ages them in bamboo containers. He lives with his wife, a native of Thailand and together, they maintain a lifestyle of their own values, apparently ignoring convention and government code requirements.

This got me thinking about some of the dualities that we live amongst:

~ those who believe in omens and those who don’t

~ those who march to societal’s rubrics, and those who do not

~ Confucian principles which honor society’s norms for acceptance
and achievement

~ Taoist philosophy supporting an individual’s quest for,
well, individuality rather than conformity in order to gain someone
else’s approval

I come from a Mandarin family that went to great lengths to pursue individual values and goals, breaking convention and persevering through hardships during the Cultural Revolution. My Aunt Lucy, for example, completed her translation of “Leaves of Grass” by Walt Whitman into Mandarin before she died despite personal tragedy and setbacks during her middle and late years in life.

Anyhow, this tea guy in Marin County reminded me of the kind of intensity to be himself in the middle of building codes and some such while carrying out his purpose–producing ancient tea. There is a documentary made about him called, “All In This Tea” that has won numerous film critic awards.

Our home is unconventional in that it is rebuilt from recycled building materials and is heated by a well dug deep under the house. There is no heating oil dependency here with a geothermal system put in by my husband, well over twenty-five years ago before it became popular as green technology.

We live in a working class town so our property is valued at less than half of what it might be were it closer to Boston where more conventional structures appreciate in value just for being located where they are, even when all the houses on the street look alike.

So, I guess there are people who live their lives according to the rules they grew up with and those who chafe at any rules at all. I’m of the latter persuasion and breathe a sigh of relief that I escaped a humdrum existence that I might otherwise have fallen into.

So, seeing red cardinals (3 in one day last week) another a couple of days later and then the one this morning, continue the drumbeat from the Cosmos to my inner spirit, reminding me that “you’re right where you’re supposed to be.”

I think it might be time to revel in this affirmation and live it up, wouldn’t you say?

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Category: Life & Spirit