Seeds of Faith or Little Things DO Matter

This year was the year that I thought about the fable of the grasshopper and the ant.  As children, many a story in varying versions are told about preparation and the value of hard work.  Growing up in the midwestern states of America, this story had a very tangible feel, because of our winters, being generally very unforgiving and bitterly cold.  My grandfather hunted deer in the northern woods of Minnesota, no so much for sport, but because they actually ate what they killed.  I heard stories of the "old country" and it always puzzled me, what was this "old country" I had heard so much about. Though I was surrounded by multiple European and Scandinavian languages we weren't encouraged to learn those tongues, but to stick with our assimilation into American culture.  We were the new generation and old ways were for other times, or so was the thinking of that time.  Whether I wanted to think of it or not, my existence was produced by war.  The emigration of my maternal great-grandparents was the direct result of the encroachment of the Russians into Finland.  My grandmother's family had emigrated from Sweden.  Meanwhile on my father's side of the family, they had steadily migrated towards the mid-section of the country after initially settling in Pennsylvania coming from France and Ireland with many a passionate love story in the mix as I traced my family tree all the way back to the 1500s.  My father had been traumatized during the Vietnam war, the sixth child of 13 children, yet, he was the first born son, and a spoiled child, he was used to being the center of attention.  That somehow did not translate well into military service for him.  The odds of my parents meeting seemed almost astronomical to me.  However, that is the nature of life.  For my son, when he thinks about it one day, his own story, it gets even more bizarre that his American parents would come from two very different backgrounds to meet in the United Kingdom, where he would himself be born where a miniature version of the Statue of Liberty resided in from of the hospital.  Significant only because his father was born in New York City where the larger version resides.  None of it planned in some sort of self aware fashion, but seemingly purposeful, as if each life is no accident, no matter how random it appears.

So this year, in a very random fashion, I planted my first garden.  In a chaotic rendition, I started with just seeds and started seedlings in April and nurtured them, watered them and bravely started to set them out as winter faded away, covering them at night and wondering if I knew what I was doing, but trusting my instincts along the way.  I trusted the earth, the sun, the rains, and pulled up a lot of weeds to prepare the soil to receive these new children.  I gently removed them from the garden boxes and transplanted them and still, I felt like I didn't know what I was doing, only vaguely having an idea that if I just did it, it would just happen.  The roots took hold and the soil was turned and I would just have a go at it.

 There wasn't a real plan.  I grew a little bit of this, that and the other, mislaid my labels and finally felt that I was just at the mercy of the fates.  There was an orderly chaos of rows of this, that, and the other to just became a garden that I visited every morning and sunset to take stock of how they were doing in the elements.  I wondered at times if they were receiving too much rain, if the hail was killing them, if the sun was scorching them, and if they were being devoured by pestilence.  Still, I was determined to run a course of non-interference with pesticides.  No traps for gophers or rabbits, and I pulled up weeds and moved some of them around with some measure of hesitation.  I realized my not having any idea of what I was doing was quite possibly my greatest asset because I wasn't afraid to try.

They are flourishing.  Lush bean stalks, peas that flowered and have vines that formed arms to link up to each other to grab life.  On days that I watered them, I noticed how they just bounced with life.  Whereas if you have seen a wilted plant that was devoid of life, the leaves seem flatter, something is lacking and in spite of its greenness, you could tell that life was no longer within those plants. 

This season has been a pleasure to explore and create something tangible as the broad pumpkin leaves spread.  I think about the journey, and it's not that I can't wait for the harvest, it's not really what was the important part of the lesson.  The important part of the lesson was that all life is really about the small things that grow into the larger things.  Oh, it was just a seed, placed into soil.  A seed, that doesn't seem important at least not until they are given favorable conditions to grow. 

Somehow, my garden, this little plot of land, has made me think about the miracle of life, it's fragile points, and it's durability.  In some ways the chaos that I look at, made me appreciate the act of just doing without premeditation, yet trusting all of my imperfect actions.  Perhaps that is what a real organic garden is; a mere reflection of the type of person I am. 

"Mary, Mary, quite contrary...."

How does YOUR garden grow?

Being Green...Like a Frog

While out gardening today, I happened to have my camera in my satchel for some strange reason.  A camera and a frog who really wasn't afraid of me as I approached the water spicket.  It seemed to know I was photographing it and just shifted from here to there like it was posing for me.  I was actually kind of amazed at how close it let me get.

Perhaps I have been used to wild things running off whenever something "human" approaches, but this little guy just sat there. 

and I just kept snapping away. 

 What kind of visitors have you found in your garden today?

Feeling Roots in The Soil

It's been a quiet year of reflection.  As I have come back home, I have travelled a bit and just wondered at times where my journey was going, what I was going to share, what I needed to learn...and all of those damn "I's" in the sentence put me on ice.  There was a homeless man who I met in DC, who went by the name of "Fingers", mainly because he had arthritis so bad that it looked like they fused together.  His joints were large and swollen, but he still managed to hold a drink.    We talked about life and my travels, and out of all of it, I shared some of the lessons, I felt I learned.  His dark brown eyes, looked dead into mine and I could see sobriety in them as he said one word, "Self."  He sat upright.  "You learn nothing, but self."  Now, there are a couple of ways to take this wise man's words, because I never push away words from the elders.  I turned those few words over and over again in my mind.  That raspy voice executing a quiet authority that commanded respect because of the truthful nature that walked with those words.  Everyone learns from doing, their experiences, but was I only looking from a perspective of personal application?  How was I helping anyone or helping myself?  And even in this action of helping, what was the real drive behind it.

We often reflect on those turning points in our lives by looking either backward or forward to another time, another dream, another moment--that is any other time but the present.  We compare, contrast, and think, perhaps I should have spent our time in other ways, or had the foresight to avert or avoid our little disasters in life.  The "had I known" quotient.  How much of our life is wasted by not being in the moment?  And as we look back, how much of that time was spent looking backwards or forwards instead of just being on the journey?  

Neither good or bad questions, since this ground actually seems to repeatedly come up through varying sources that tell us to be ever PRESENT.  Can you be ever present without self-obsessing?  So I stopped.  I stopped writing.  I corresponded with others instead.  My "aha moments" stopped.  I replaced them with "ahhhh" moments.  I stopped knowing everything and shut up.  I went back to being the student of life, which is a proper perspective, in order to start doing things I had forgotten how to do, never had done before, or had thought I already knew.  "I know nothing."  Everyone knew I had stories to tell, but forget them for now.  I was no longer the confidant on the road abroad, I was now the expatriate at home.  Home?

A year was spent chasing my tail trying to just figure out my life.  What was "I" going to do?  When I thought about a regular job working for some sort of corporation, acid and bile filled my digestion.  Listen to your stomach, it tells you the truth when no one else will.  Friends and family were getting anxious for me.  However, I did something completely strange...I embraced being clueless.  I embraced being lost.  I walked around in a void because everything I was touching and seeing wasn't "it".  I searched through non-profits, government, corporations and even had a stint as a precious metals trader because of my zero belief in paper currencies, but still that hollow sound that echos.

So what do you do when you know you are not at that place where you need to be?  In a word of doing, I was not doing.  I was lost in deep thought, silence and trying the acquisition of patience.  It took a lot to shut up my mind and to start digging into my character.  What did I really need to think about?  What was the real desired impact?  Then, it began to happen inside of me.  I began to start seeing what I wanted to see once I let go and knew nothing.  This whole year, was about knowing nothing and being teachable again.  It was more than physical possessions I had needed to let go of, I needed to let go of the known, the boundaries, the definitions, etc.  in order to create that fertile ground to start learning.

"I have never." are three words that keep people from doing.  The secret is, make the attempt even if you fail.  You have no experience as a child, but that doesn't stop you from trying.  A child is instructed, the task modeled and the child repeats and repeats until the task is satisfactorily replicated for a foundation where they begin to recreate and hopefully evolve to create something that shows their imagination.  A light goes on.  That is how you create a Tesla, an Einstein, or even better, a YOU to bring your gifts to the table.  In China, I was honored to be called Lao Shi, which means teacher, because to me, that meant I touched their lives.  In this journey, in various points, I have been surrounded by diverse peoples, population

 sizes, and now, in this quiet small community where the population is numbered at 4,210.  I am immersed with nature and the sounds of woodpeckers, tree frogs, and roosters.  I smell the earth, see clear skies, and can see the sun rise almost 30 minutes prior to those who live in the city, with an unobstructed view of the horizon.  The people speak slowly as though their thoughts continually simmer.  Their words chosen with care, as to not offend.  The earth is turned, the seeds are planted and the weeds are pulled.  Character, not wealth is valued.  Oaths are made with handshakes.  Impressions are made by the quality of craftsmanship, not the contents of empty promises.  There is poetry in the till, grace in the floating honey bees, and the paint and varnish of heels and make up is put away.  To retain your soul, your essence, no matter where you travel in the world is one thing.  To give of yourself, along the way, without expectation is quite another.  The mastery of a child is "not knowing".

There was a Chinese parable of a student who came to a master to be taught the art of Zen meditation.  The master refused the student because he refused to not know all he had learned in life.  "You must first unlearn all you know and then I can teach you."  Another way to look at it is how can new furniture be delivered to a full house.  Maybe it took me a year just to know nothing and it will take me a lifetime to master the art of not knowing.