Take your seat,
Feel yourself
Connected to the earth.
Be quiet
Let the stillness enter
Know that all things pass away
People, animals, nature
Yet you can rest at ease
Allow all things to rise and fall
With a peaceful heart
Be at the centre
This is home.
Tomorrow is Remembrance Day in Canada. A day we remember those who gave their life for us in conflict; respect for those who are serving today. Canada is known as a country of peacemakers. I want to be a peacemaker. My favourite Catholic prayer is “make me an instrument of your peace” by St. Francis of Assisi
I don’t have much experience with war. I have never seen it, touched it, smelled it or heard it. It is only in my imagination, fueled by what I have read or seen in the media. I know that it is suffering.
In my grade 12 English Lit class we wrote an essay on “is war real or romantic”. It was 1971. We had the war in Vietnam Even that wasn’t real. It was romantic, at 17 you protested against a war. This war gave us a chance to flex our budding adult hood. I remember cheekily asking my mom if she thought the communists were going to swim across the ocean and kill her in her sleep.Worse yet I married a draft dodger, if only for a brief time. We had a great teacher that was way ahead of his time. He taught that the next big war would be over natural resources; fossil fuels first and then they would come for our water. My parents thought that was ridiculous. We got the lecture about how my paternal grandfather had served in WWI and my mother’s brothers in WWII. They protected us from evil. I so wish that is true.
Evil is still all around us.
Tomorrow I will remember my grandfather and all grandfathers. I will pray for gratitude and awareness of how fragile and unpredictable life is; I will cherish the wealth of my life. I will do my best to bring my attention more deeply to life around me. I will be an instrument of peace.
Bodhi
"Some days are like this,
you wake with an ache in your chest
that isn't even yours.
You know that somewhere, great rivers
of blood are being shed.
Somewhere mothers are weeping over
children, bodies strewn like wildflowers.
Somewhere, men and women, eat a bowl of pain -
A man tells his wife that he is leaving,
A woman wakes in an empty bed
or puts her hand to en empty place
where a breast was.
Somewhere, in the screeching of brakes
there is a shattering, of glass, of lives.
This earth is covered in a sea of suffering.
If for few moments we manage to forget
do not begrudge us our wine, our prayer, our reaching out
for a word, a touch,
even from a stranger"
Posted in Thoughts, What Matters
Tagged bodhi, peace, regina sara ryan, rememberance day, st. francis
He took a big, almost sob relieving breath.
“My Grandpa loved us. He really loved his girls (his dogs). He had a big smile and really big laugh. He told great jokes. He made us laugh. He took us on the best hikes. My Grandpa could take a nap any where any time.
I love him and miss him.”
Our next door neighbor’s “celebration of life” was today. It was a simple affair, just as he would have wanted it, followed by chili, and wiener and marshmallow roast for the whole community. It was a fantastic fire.
Below was his daily walk with his girls.
“Thankful for vegetarians!”Tagged Canada, gratitude, thanksgivng, vegetarians, wild turkey
August has sped by, and it’s now September. Living in the country always seems to involve work. So far we have painted the outside of the house, laid a floor, painted a bedroom and redone a bathroom. We spent two weekends volunteering for our community and two weekends helping my mother-in-law and our daughter and son-in-law (he tore is ACL) who both live in the city but needed the country Papa with his chainsaw and a big truck.
The weather has been amazing, hot and sunny (July was a record for zero precipitation). We pruned, mowed, watered, and then did it some more. Our next door neighbor was diagnosed with acute leukemia two month ago, we mow and water his place as well.
I picked berries, apricots, peaches and pears. Then I canned, the fruits of our labour. Vegetables are next. I love this time of year. 
The jars filled with fruit always sparkle like jewels in the sun.
We visited the osprey nest and have enjoyed the two little ones as they learned to fly using our yard as a flight lane to the lake. Very noisy when they fly over; either just joy of the flight or letting their mom know where they were. A large heron who must live down the creek or in the neighbouring lake also used our yard as a flight path at least five times a day, but never when I had the camera out, only a paint brush. I knew he was over head because of the shadow he cast.
The bees have really enjoyed the flower garden and the natural meadow. I enjoy my morning coffee with them. The stellar jays are back and hogging the bird feeders, the humming birds are gone until next year. Other migrating birds stop by for a feed and then continue on. Even the wasps have left their nest.
I still have a war with the burdock and now thistle. Trees needed to be felled. Spruce bud worm and pine beetle have not be kind to us. Old age for some has also set in.
I try to keep the camera handy hoping to catch sight of the bears and deer that have been eating their way through the back.They only seem to visit at night, or when I’m not home. I know they have been through because branches are bent, grass is trampled and scat remains.
Late one afternoon the dogs started barking, with that bark that means something is afoot. I quickly glanced out the door and over the deck to see something very big and brown move through my sight. Quick grab the camera….turn it on….focus and came face to face with…
Six beautiful cow-calf pairs, very healthy, with that stare of “what are you looking at?” Now I know I live on the cusp of free range grasslands but I have never had cows on the property before. They must have come up the creek because we are fenced and cross fenced from the road back. The closest rancher only has one pair, and they are caramel coloured. Our 15 month old Bernese Mountain Dog was ecstatic. Wow, can I go herd them? Let me show you I can do it. He ran from the deck to the gate and back, stared at them, gave them his best eye; they just stared back.
They had to belong to someone, they were tagged and branded. Do I let them be or try to move them through the gates to a more secure and safe field? They were enjoying the apples
. We decided to let them be until we figured out where they belonged. It turns out they are owned by the native band and were quite a few kilometers from home. These poor moms were taking their calves to safer ground…. dirt bikers and quaders (usually city weekend warriors) have been tearing up the grasslands in their quest for speed and new trails. Even though it is private property, they are hard to catch, and have no respect for the ecology, wildlife or ranch animals.
I would loved to have kept them, but our property is not big enough to feed six cows. They got cowboyed back up to the ranch.
Yes it’s September. Summer has been good to us. Fall is on its way. Hard work is how we get ready for winter. It brings thoughts of impermanence but also a renewal. I found these beautiful flowers way off in the back bush. I think they are lady slippers. Let’s see if I can transplant them to the front for spring.
Tagged country life, dirt bikers, fall, free range cattle, hard work, impermanence, osprey, renewal
I lost an old friend two weeks ago. I had no time to grieve. The day after he died a blog I read posted the poem below. The poem is by Pablo Neruda.
The blogger called it “found zen”. I realized how lucky I am to have all these beautiful animals in my life to keep me grounded. Unfettered unconditional love is what I aspire to. These bodhisattvas will return for me.
My dog has died.
I buried him in the garden
next to a rusted old machine.
Someday I’ll join him right there,
but now he’s gone with his shaggy coat,
his bad manners and his cold nose,
and I, the materialist, who never believed
in any promised heaven in the sky
for any human being,
I believe in a heaven I’ll never enter.
Yes, I believe in a heaven for all dogdom
where my dog waits for my arrival
waving his fan-like tail in friendship.
Ai, I’ll not speak of sadness here on earth,
of having lost a companion
who was never servile.
His friendship for me, like that of a porcupine
withholding its authority,
was the friendship of a star, aloof,
with no more intimacy than was called for,
with no exaggerations:
he never climbed all over my clothes
filling me full of his hair or his mange,
he never rubbed up against my knee
like other dogs obsessed with sex.
No, my dog used to gaze at me,
paying me the attention I need,
the attention required
to make a vain person like me understand
that, being a dog, he was wasting time,
but, with those eyes so much purer than mine,
he’d keep on gazing at me
with a look that he reserved for me alone
all his sweet and shaggy life,
always near me, never troubling me,
and asking nothing.
Ai, how many times have I envied his tail
as we walked together on the shores of the sea
in the lonely winter of Isla Negra
where the wintering birds filled the sky
and my hairy dog was jumping about
full of the voltage of the sea’s movement:
my wandering dog, sniffing away
with his golden tail held high,
face to face with the ocean’s spray.
Joyful, joyful, joyful,
as only dogs know how to be happy
with only the autonomy
of their shameless spirit.
There are no good-byes for my dog who has died,
and we don’t now and never did lie to each other.
So now he’s gone and I buried him,
and that’s all there is to it.
Posted in Thoughts, What Matters
Tagged bernese mountain dogs, Bodhisattva, death of a dog, pablo neruda, unconditional love, zen of animals
The garden is humming with all sorts of insects and creatures. I have planted to attract butterflies and bees and its working. All day you can see and hear them feeding and gathering. They love the Delphinium, and I love to watch them go in and back out until they are loaded with pollen.
The pond attracts creatures as well especially since it has been so hot. We had 30 days of sunshine in July, and the temperature has reached 30 degrees C. most days.
It cools down considerably in the evening and our friends the bats come out in droves to feed on mosquitoes and other small bugs. We built houses for them last year, and we have quite a clan now.
Imagine my surprise to wake up this morning to find one of our friends came for a sleepover. He was hanging from our bedroom door. I didn’t want to wake him after such a hard night’s work.
Tagged bats, bees, butterflies, butterflies and bees, delphinium, dragonflies, gardening, nature
We all have our favourite colours. Mine is green. When my granddaughter, Giorgia was little she loved pink, purple and blues. Yellow, orange and green were not in her palette. Now as an amazing artist at seven, she is more tolerant of other colours. She loves the way they blend to make unique colours all her own.
Deadheading in the garden yesterday I realized that all the summer flowers were jewel colours. Giorgia would laugh at me. They reminded me so much of my mother. She loved jewel tones and wore them with flare. Her jet black hair and green eyes when she was young and her beautiful silver hair in her elder years were complemented by the jewel tones. She looked very much like the Queen Mom, all lady like with her white gloves and lipstick and her shot of Drambuie in the evening.
My mother was not a gardener. My dad did all the gardening. My mother preferred being indoors and sewing or knitting. Her mother, who I never knew was a gardener. She preferred the outdoors on the prairie and would much rather be riding her horse bareback then being in the house as a young woman. Gardening kept her outside as a wife and mother. I don’t know what colours she liked as the only pictures I have are sepia.
I don’t know if likes and dislikes or talents can be passed down genetically even if you never met the person. A genetic reincarnation of sorts. I certainly identify with my grandmother more than my mother. Riding bareback and gardening, being out in nature are very much my cup of tea.
My daughter sometimes reminds me of my mother. Her flare for fashion and decorating are similar. They both got along famously, after Lara stopped being a teenager. The famous shoe addiction certainly did not pass her by.
Maybe it’s in my own mind that I identify with Giorgia and feel we are kindred souls. Everything about her thrills me. She is very right brain like me. We had a great discussion the last time I visited on whether we were schlemiels or schlimazels. We agreed that we were definitely a little of both, with much laughter.
That’s the benefit of having a garden to deadhead. Gives you time to think. Remembering my mother, loving my granddaughters.
Is the brightly coloured butterfly more prized than the common white one?
Just living is not enough,” said the butterfly, “one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower.”
~Hans Christian Anderson
We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.
~Carl Sagan
Do we love the moon only when it is full?
Tagged butterfly, butterfly bush, moon, nature, perception, russian sage
It is interesting how themes run through your life or even a day. Lately, it’s been all about trees. Almost everything I have read or watched has had trees attached to it. Trees have always been part of my samsara and my joy.
The trees of my childhood, the giant maples, the clipped holly trees of the boulevard and massive dogwoods that lined our driveway.
Trees have always been outside my windows in the rooms where I have cried. No matter where I have lived there has always been a special tree. There was the stag-horn sumacs in the first house we renovated. Then the 50 ft. deodar cedar at the next house. The next move brought tortured giant bonsai, ornamental cherries, hawthorns, dogwood and magnolia’s.
Today in the sub alpine I call home, trees are everywhere. There are 75 less than there was 13 years ago when we moved in. Most lost to weather, insects or age.
If you look at a tree, straight on you can see it grows up to the light, reaching higher, for the precious nourishment of sunlight. When you sit under a tree you can feel how it reaches down and sits firmly in the earth; roots attached nourishing itself with water and the goodness of soil.
“The tree as an iconographic metaphor is perhaps the most universally widespread of all great cultural symbols. Trees appear and reappear throughout human history to illustrate nearly every aspect of life. .” Theodore W. Pietsch
I have spent numerous hours outside working at gardening,trying to carve a sacred place of favourite flowers. Even after 12 years it’s hard to give up the habits of a growing zone 3 times less than where you live now. I am reading The Garden Parable by Margaret Roach and was fascinated with her description of her special tree, Sciadopitys verticillata. It got me thinking maybe I could add a special tree to my garden.
I went for a walk around the property. I wouldn’t add anything to the back acreage that borders the creek. I have resigned myself to leaving it natural for the wildlife. Even the fallen trees in the creek stay. It’s natures way of creating habitat. After devastating wildfires, what comes alive in the ashes is amazing and meant to be. Even the red osier dogwood we cut for poles for the sweat lodge has come back with a vengeance.
Our front acreage where we spend most of our time and where we have the most tree loss still has over 100 trees. For the first time I really looked at them and realized how much I loved their beauty. I walked, I laid down and looked at them from all angles. I noticed the creatures, birds and bugs that lived in and around them. They are survivors. All special.
“I know that in our previous life we were trees, and even in this life we continue to be trees. Without trees, we cannot have people, therefore trees and people inter-are. We are trees, and air, bushes and clouds. If trees cannot survive, humankind is not going to survive either. We get sick because we have damaged our own environment, and we are in mental anguish because we are so far away from our true mother, Mother Nature.”—Thich Nhat Hanh
We water each other with our tears.
Tagged environment, nature, Thich Nhat Hanh, tree of life, trees
Amazed With Mystery 