Longing for the Weeds
Hard to believe we’re turning towards April in Minnesota, where I live. Out my window, I only see snow and dead leaves on the plants still standing from last year’s garden.
I pawed through the snow this morning to see if I might find anything living at all—often the first thing I find is an aggressive weed called Creeping Charlie. In the summer, I am all about pulling up Creeping Charlie and removing it as much as I can. In the spring, though, I greet it as one would the bloom of a precious orchid. I squeal, my eyes sometimes tear up, I then pull off a piece, lift it up to my face, and sniff. AAAAH, I say out loud, standing on my sidewalk, and I wave it in the face of friend, family or stranger who happen to be near.
Some plants have pungent smells: Herbs, or geraniums, or roses. Creeping Charlie in spring smells just like life. Even as I write about it, I feel myself yearning to see it, to smell it, to touch it. Knowing that by July it will, once again, be just an annoying weed, taking up space where I want something beautiful to flower.
It’s been a long and cold winter here in Minnesota, and in many parts of the country—I’m just back from Boston, where I had hoped to see a few yellow daffodils blooming and instead saw white (and grungy) snow. I got out of town this winter, and headed to warmer climates as much as I could, but not long enough to keep me from getting a little edgy, irritable, surly even.
So, along about now, many of us start threatening to get out of Dodge, to live someplace that doesn’t make us so cranky. This time, perhaps, I am serious…but then I start remembering all the reasons I truly love it here. And I paw through the snow a little more.
All of this is to say, today is the day that I’ll plant my seedlings in the basement under grow lights. In the tiny section of the world I can control, I’ll begin greening up the world a bit, going down each morning to see my new babies poke their little heads up from the dirt, begin to get the shape of the leaves they will eventually become.
I think there’s a reason that seeds are such a universal symbol of hope. Every religion uses the metaphor of the seed to talk about possibility, growth, potential. In the seeds I plant today is my hope, and my affirmation, that once again, the snow will melt, the flowers will bloom, the herbs will be delicious, the roses will sweeten the air. But before that, blessed be the Creeping Charlie…
Kinds of Love
Happy Valentine’s Day. If, you know, that’s your thing. If you happen to be one of the people who not only is in a relationship, but is in the kind of relationship where you send each other flowers and mushy notes before your romantic evening out, then good on ya’. But if you happen to be one of the many, many people who doesn’t have a love interest, or broke up, or lost your long-term partner to death, or prefer to be single, or don’t feel that you can be out about your sexual orientation, or know that your partner will forget to buy you something special or have agreed with your partner that both of you couldn’t care less about Valentines, then where is holiday for you? Where does the love in your life, wherever you find it, get the honors?
The problem with Valentine’s Day is that it only addresses one particular kind of love – what the ancient Greeks called eros. Erotic love; passionate, pulse-racing, grabbing each other in dark corners love is a glorious thing, and there’s nothing wrong with celebrating it with some flowers and chocolate. But let’s not kid ourselves that eros is the only—or even the most important—kind of love. Of course, the Greeks acknowledged other kinds of love: the unconditional love of agape, the friendship of philia. But I think that there is room for celebrating quite a few other kinds of love as well. How about:
Canifelios: The love shared between people and their pets. Get real. How much time do you spend cuddling with a human partner compared with the physical affection you lavish on a cat or dog? The mutual love of a human and a pet includes loyalty and mutual care and wordless devotion. It includes the physical intimacy of stroking and snuggling. It gives you the rush of the hormone oxytocin that is also associated with the connection between mothers and infants and adults in the first flush of falling in love.
Compania: The love of long-time best friends, or couples who have stayed together across decades, or siblings or cousins who are there for each other every step of the way. Compania is founded in deep trust that the person will always be there for you, in inside jokes that you’ve shared for years, in the profound knowledge of one another’s quirks and failings as well as gifts and talents. Compania leads us to stick up for one another, to tell the truth in love and to choose a judicious white lie every now and then, to hold one another up when we think that maybe we can’t keep going.
Biophilia: Love for nature, for all living things. Biophilia leads us to find renewal in nature, to rest in the shade of giant redwoods or beside singing creeks. Biophilia is lived out in gardens where people become intimate with the soil of their particular location, at feeders where people celebrate and support the flashing beauty of birds, at summer camps where kids swim in lakes and get covered in dirt, on backpacking trips filled with the scent of pines and stars so bright that whole galaxies lean into this sphere of love.
Logoros: Love of learning, and of books. Logoros sucks up our time with articles on the internet on brain chemistry and economics, and keeps us up at night with books that we simply can put down. It leads us into new worlds, expands our hearts with compassion for people who don’t even exist, expands our minds with knowledge that we many never use, but which makes our understanding of the world that much richer and more complex. Logoros may seem abstract, but in reality it is an expression of our connection to this world in all of its details, the need to touch the particulars of our shared human life in the way you would explore a lover’s body with your fingertips.
Thelios: Love for the All, for the Connecting Principle, the Ground of Being, God. The love we return to the love that will not let us go. It could be love for a personal god who holds and comforts and carries us. It could be love for the wonder of the creative universe, an awe-struck connection to the sum of all the beauty that surrounds us. Big Love.
So if you want to celebrate Valentine’s Day with chocolate and flowers, by all means feel free. But feel just as free to celebrate the ways you love with a tug toy, a phone call, a walk in the woods, a new book, a prayer. There can’t be too many ways or too many days to honor love.
Be Here Later, or Be There Now?
I finally cleaned the back yard the other day, a task I had spent several months avoiding. In fact, in about 90 minutes, I accomplished something that I had actively avoided for at least sixteen hours. I calculate those hours from the time I spent staring out the kitchen window, cursing the mess and myself for not cleaning up the mess.
So you might be wondering what finally propelled me to do it? Was it a guest coming, someone I wanted to impress? Nope. Just the day before, two friends stopped by independently, having called to say, “I’d love to stop by and see your garden.” I showed them around the beautiful, well cared for front yard, with a dismissive “ignore the back yard,” as if they could. Didn’t bother me a bit.
Was it the fact that the dog dug a huge hole in my perennial garden because she could no longer access the parts of the yards which are hers to dig, full as they were by chest high weeds? Nope. Those holes have been coming for a while. They’re annoying, but mostly I couldn’t see them for the weeds.
Was it that we had a hard rain the other night making weeding easier and providing a pleasant temperature? Well, that didn’t hurt any, but it wasn’t the deciding factor. There have been scads of rains that have not motivated me in the past.
What finally propelled me out the back door to this long-avoided task was simply this: I wanted to avoid another task even more. Suddenly the activity which had been on the top of my procrastination list was bumped. Suddenly, the back yard was the lesser of two evils. I woke up thinking about what I needed to do, and thought, “You know, I REALLY should clean the back yard!”
Five minutes into the job, I was thoroughly happy, wondering why it had taken me so long to get there, delighted by how quickly a huge mess could turn into tidiness (and lawn bags full of limbs and weeds) and vowing, though with little credibility with myself, it would never happen again.
Have you ever noticed this: The same task can be done to avoid something else, or to simply accomplish the task itself? For me at least, each one of these ways of doing something has a distinct energy, rhythm, and value.
Much has been made of simply doing what you are doing. Ram Dass’ book, “Be Here Now,” was the Bible for my generation, and what he didn’t say about simply being in the present, Thich Nhat Han finished off with all of his mindfulness talks about doing the dishes when you do the dishes and stuff like that. Sure, I’m good with all of that. Who can argue with it?
But what about the value of being here later, or earlier? Or going somewhere else altogether because we just can’t bear to be where we’re supposed to be? There’s a certain lifeforce in that as well, though I’m not aware of any religious teachings which embrace it as central. Although Unitarian Universalism comes close sometimes. I mean, as much as we like to say, it’s not about what we don’t believe, it’s what we do believe, that’s only partly true. In reality, for many of us, knowing what Unitarian Universalism is NOT was of keen importance, before we would commit ourselves to taking the time to learn what it was.
So my backyard is clean, for the moment, and I’m not going to tell you about this other task I’m avoiding. I don’t even want to think about it!
Friends: The Spice of Life
If most of our life consists of basic repetitive tasks that are simple and predictable—some would say boring—it’s the people we interact with who make our days interesting. If our life were a soup, the people we know would be the spices.
Some people, like salt and pepper, are always nearby, always present at the table, every day. They are our basic fallback for a good meal. Even though we may get fancy with varieties, the basic flavor is familiar, easily accessible, comfortable to use. Other people are more rare in our lives, and have very particular ways in which we interact with them.
This morning, missing a particular friend, I found myself thinking that she makes me think of chipotle pepper. My handy dandy search engine told me that the adjectives often used to describe chipotle pepper include: intense heat, dark, smoky flavor, wonderfully hot and smoky. Yep, that describes my friend in a nutshell. When you miss her, you miss her particularity.
Reading those adjectives made me wonder about the adjectives commonly used to describe other spices, and how they might also describe people.
Do you know someone who is strong, sweet, and familiarly cool? That’s the mint in your life. And someone nutty, warm, spicy, sweet? That’s your nutmeg friend! On the other hand, if you are friends with someone who is bitter when raw, perhaps they are more like juniper berries.
Some friends, not to mention acquaintances, are like cayenne: They are very hot and spicy, so should be used with caution. Or like savory, should be used sparingly. Others must be interacted with very carefully, as they can stain, like turmeric. Or, like cloves, can quickly become overpowering—we need to use great care when working with them!
Some folks we know are slightly bitter, just like celery seed, marjoram, and paprika. Some are kind of nutty, like poppy, sesame, or carroway seeds. Some are earthy and pungent, like bay leaves.
Clearly not all people, or spices, combine well together, and all are best in particular kinds of situations, or dishes. Some are very versatile. Some are associated with particular cultures or nationalities. Some are great fresh and some really need a lot of careful cooking. Some, like cinnamon sticks, add flavor while cooking but should never actually be consumed.
In my kitchen, and in my life, I like to have all kinds of different options. Just as I would be unhappy with only using salt and pepper for my spices, I would be much less blessed if my friends were all of the same age, temperament, race, gender or culture.
In my kitchen, and in my life, I love variety. And while salt and pepper may be my go-to spices, I have no interest in a salt-and-pepper life! Thank heavens for a wide variety of friends who are spicy and diverse!
August: The Year’s Midlife Crisis
I think August is the midlife crisis month of every year. At least here in Minnesota, this is the time when things I haven’t done begin to loom around the edges, saying, “If not now, when!?” It’s hot and sticky here, but the days are getting shorter, and we all know where we’re heading. Mortality calls us by name.
I was driving down the street yesterday and saw a treehouse. Not a fancy treehouse, not an amazing treehouse, just a pretty basic backyard maple tree treehouse. To my shock, upon seeing it, I burst into tears. Happily, I was alone, and not in heavy traffic, so I could pull over and get my bearings.
As I cried, what was running through my head was that it was suddenly, inarguably, completely and utterly clear that I would never be building my own kid that treehouse she once wanted. She is 16 now, breezing by occasionally in between the events in her complex social calendar. If I built her the fanciest, most spectacular treehouse on the planet, she would glance out the window, say, “Thanks!” and continue on her own way.
It’s not that she begged for a treehouse when she was younger, or even particularly wanted one. It’s not that I didn’t give her other cool things, or experiences. It’s that the window has closed on that possibility, and on the whole Mom-as-center-of-desire-fulfillment stage of her life. Don’t get me wrong: It’s not that she doesn’t cozy up like a toddler when she wants something, usually money or permission to do something. But in her life’s soundtrack, I am mostly the background music now, not very often the plot or the dialogue.
I know that’s just as it should be, and still I sat by the side of the road and had a moment. A moment of grief and loss, a moment of clarity that it is time for me to redefine my own life, refocus my own days. Then, as I pulled myself together, a sense that there is some joy and excitement in that refocus. The regrets are real, but the pull of life’s new possibility is much stronger.
Regrets come to me in surprising way. One morning, stacking dishes into the dishwasher, I ached with regret that I had never spent time on Ebay searching for particular dinner plates that my father said once, in passing, he liked. I still regret that I didn’t give him a college sweatshirt—I know that he wanted one the Christmas that I was 19 and he admired the one I had one myself, but I told myself I couldn’t afford the twelve bucks to get him one of his own. For God’s sake, I think now, with all that money he shelled out!?!? I finally went back for a college reunion years later and sprang twenty bucks for a college t-shirt, which he received politely, but with no visible enthusiasm. I found it, clean and unworn, when I cleaned out his dresser after he died last year.
I don’t know if this is true for other people, but the regrets that I have are much more about things I didn’t do than things I did. I’ve done some really stupid things. Careless things, wreckless things, inappropriate things, occasionally something downright mean. I’ve made huge mistakes. But forgiving myself for those is somehow easier than forgiving myself for the things I never did. The trips I haven’t taken, the risks I looked away from, the conversations and relationships I avoided.
So, in this final stretch of summer, I am thinking, what will I regret if I don’t do it now? That lake down the street that I mostly just nodded to in June and July? I’m in it every day now. The garden, so easy to visit superficially? I’m diving into it now with my whole body, not caring a bit how filthy I get. My days have a mantra: grab summer now! This is your moment! Stop lamenting how hot it is and have some fun!
Spiritual Drought & Restoration
I have to be mindful of the baskets of flowers that hang below the eaves. Even though it has rained for four days, the eaves have sheltered the flowers from the rain. This means that though the road is washed out and water sits upon the ground with no where to go, even though the dock is below the lake’s surface and the warbler flycatchers have to hunt not in the air but up and down the hemlocks seeking mosquitoes for their chicks, even though I am living in a surfeit of good cold rain, the flowers might die from thirst.
Spiritually, this is also true. How many spiritual leaders and regular religious adherents have I met who are going through a tough spiritual drought while all around them is running lush and wet? When we’re in those spiritually dry times, everyone we meet and the world around us can seem tremendously fresh and full and juicy, making our own thirst worse, somehow crueler.
Watering these hanging baskets by hand, refreshing the water in the dog’s bowl, I stop to pour myself a glass of cold water, knowing that I can ignore my own thirst for a very long time. I’m busy attending the thirst of plants that cannot draw up their own water, or the thirst of a dog who remains puzzled as to why there are no paws-alone working taps in the house, or to the spiritual thirst of a seeker, a stranger, or a friend. That needs doing. I also need to drink a glass of water, too, stopping to refresh my body and stopping to refresh my soul.
I’ve been quieter than usual lately, largely due to the acuity of an illness I live with – and expect to live with for the rest of my life. I’ve been learning my new limitations, adapting to what has emerged as patterns. Adaptation is just what human beings do, and I believe spirituality is our biggest adaptive response. The Unitarian Universalist minister Forrest Church taught: “religion is the human response to being alive and having to die.” That may be so. I have found that spirituality is my response to the challenges of living. We innovate, we renovate, we create, and these are all forms of adaptation to change, to opportunity, to energy, to possibility. This season of my life has been a wet one, rich with opportunities to grow spiritually, full of change, most of which are not ones I would choose, welcome, or wish for someone else.
Yet, despite all these rainy blessings, I grew thirsty, inattentive to my spirit, my attention absorbed by other changes, by the needs of others, by loss and by the physical difficulty of each day. If one lets a basket of flowers dry out completely, a flood of water will wash off the top of the dry soil. One has to rehydrate the basket slowly, with sips, with gentle attention until the soil is full and spongy again. The same is true with our spirits. When we have gone through a drought or neglected to tend our spirits, we have to return with small, regular sips of life-giving blessings. As we do, our senses come back into balance, and we are more able to serve, more able to struggle well with what is needful, more able to laugh generously and to forgive, more able to fulfill our faithful promises and love this life sparkling in wonder and growing in hope.
Give It All Away! Wisdom of the plants
These days, as spring turns to summer, the garden is insistent with one message: Give it away, or lose it all.
Early in the development of a garden, it’s about procurement. Picking out plants, choosing a place for them, seeing how they do. With the kinds of perennials I tend to favor, that is both fun and highly interactive. Many of the flowers in my yard have stories that go along with them about who gave them to me, stories that make them that much more beautiful.
And now, as I go into the fifth or sixth summer of having turned my yard into flowers, herbs and vegetables, it is imperative that I give stuff away. If I don’t, if I try to hold onto all of the abundance for myself, the whole thing will die.
And so I join my local facebook group for perennial exchange and post regularly what I have to offer, “Bee balm. Rudbeckia. Strawberries. Grape thistle. Dig your own!” People come with shovels, apologetic about taking too much, and I want to tell them, there is no such thing as taking too much!
I go to farmers’ markets, see people paying $5 for rhubarb, $25 for a hanging basket full of morning glories, and though I want farmers to make a good living, still I want to whisper, “I’ll pay you to come to my house and take that same thing!” I refuse to allow a friend I am there with to buy morning glory plants, my voice so sternly admonishing, you would think she wanted to eat kittens. I convince a friend into native foods to try to eat Jerusalem artichokes; I happen to have hundreds. I offer plants to neighbors who walk by and stop to admire, to friends planting gardens at their kids’ schools. I plant lupines and ferns and hostas in pots from garage sales and sell them myself at a garage sale, to start others on their gardening journeys.
There is so much wisdom, so much life, in what the garden is teaching me about giving it away.
First, in order to give away what I can’t use myself, I need to be in constant relationship with many people. Weeding and throwing on the compost pile is the simplest way to say goodbye to too many lupines and kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate plants; it is tremendously more fun to give them to people who will love them! When someone I can’t remember ever talking to stops by and says, “We have been eating raspberries all week from the shoots you gave us,” it makes my day. It’s unlikely that a few people will want all I have to offer. I must diversify channels for the abundance to flow!
Second, it’s OK to change my garden, to simplify. The “tall garden” I loved turned out to block my neighbor’s view of the lake, so now I have a short garden I love, with the tall plants elsewhere in my yard, and the yards of others. The vine that promised beautiful flowers turned out to be so vigorous it scared me–dig that out and pass it on to someone who wants to cover an old barn!
And finally, the most beautiful flower becomes a weed if it’s growing someplace you don’t want it. Along with aphids, beetles, early frosts, flooding rains, and sudden frosts, I get to arbitrate life and death in the garden! I am the creator of this plant haven so I also am given the power to be the destroyer—to decide that vinca is, after all, not what I want, even though it is thriving in my yard, or that the fancy lilies simply get on my nerves with their showy blossoms; I prefer more humble snapdragons. For those of us who tend towards codependency and putting others before us, gardening is a great exercise in getting to put our own needs first!
There are hundreds more messages I receive from the plants on a regular basis; I will be sharing these as they arise. One of them is “To everything there is a season,” and today’s season is about sharing and relinquishing the abundance of life in order to treasure what is particularly yours to treasure.