Tag: Gardening

Gardening, Gratitude, Nature, Photography, Slow Life

Sprummertime

by Kitty7 Comments on Sprummertime

Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God. ~ Leon Bloy

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is, “Thank you,” it will be enough.  ~ Meister Eckhart

A week of temperatures in the mid and upper 70’s—and more of this in the forecast—has taken us from an underwhelming winter through a barely-whelmed spring and into an overwhelming summer in the space of two weeks. Of course, all of this can reverse, and probably will. Life in the time of climate change.

While fellow life forms merrily rush forward in relishing the warmth, smells, bare feet, and outdoor grilling this weather affords, we gardeners can be, initially, a bit suspect and hesitant. Such dramatic temperatures cause anxiety regarding our plants’ premature budding, and we worry about weeds and pests gaining early footholds in their annual encroachment and destruction of our gardens. I’ve been checking the gardens every day, tentatively weeding on the perimeters, but not daring to remove the leaves and evergreen branches I use for mulch, or to tread too soon on tender garden beds. The rule here used to be: No vigorous gardening till after Memorial Day, but the change in climate has pushed the threat of frost back a week or two over the last decade. However, gardening before St. Patrick’s Day seems a bit risky and curious.

And curioser.

Very down-the rabbit-hole this year; that is, if there were any room, what with all the bunnies coming up-the-hole to joyfully romp among the paradise my humble gardens apparently present. The wire “wraps” we use to protect plants and shrubs from becoming winter meals are still in place, mostly; if I can dissuade squirrels from digging up tulip bulbs, the gardens will be fine. Maybe.

Like all gardeners, I try to anticipate and head trouble off at the pass; the unending surprises nature offers keep us agile and creative problem-solvers. It’s an active sport that lasts from thaw till frost. That’s why we like winter so much: it is the enforced time-out when all the players—the people, plants, and pests–can take a rest, heal from our losses, forget the stresses of the sport and again dream of new designs, stronger disease resistance, and an end to mildew, creeping Charlie, Japanese beetles, and black spot. If theater is your metaphor of choice, winter is a welcome intermission. This year, I feel like I’ve been called back into play before I got a chance at the water bottle, or the Third Act has begun without time for my costume change.

Winter has always offered us gardeners a much-needed dip in the River Lethe, so that in spring we emerge with trowels, rakes, and hoes, infused with hope, the memories of blights and droughts sunken deeply in oblivion. I can’t say that by mid-March I’ve yet forgotten the struggles of last year’s gardening; they persistently creep back and interrupt my garden dreams. I’d like another month with the perfection offered in garden catalogues…

But, of course, the shift in climate is not without gifts, and greeting them with happy gratitude certainly graces the experience at the energetic and spirit level. Sprummertime has allowed us to turn off the furnace, open windows, and bring the lovely breezes and smells indoors. Doing so also effectively removes any need for an alarm clock. With dawn’s birdsong, flocks of sandhill cranes yodeling overhead, fish jumping in the river, and who-knows-what running through the woods, it’s hard to remain asleep. (The crows know who’s running in their woods, and are very earnest in employing their alarm system to effectively carrying this news to the next county. Or state.)

And, in many ways, it’s a relief to enjoy the warmth and sunlight without the possibility of spending all day in the garden. Up at dawn and out on the trail with my camera, I’ve enjoyed the morning fog that our unusual weather has created, and all the ways it’s made sunrise even more magical than usual. The dogs and I have been going for longer walks, the canoe is taking us on exciting March adventures, and my husband and I have already purchased our annual passes for the bike trail, taking our first ride of the season last night, in t-shirts and shorts, before returning home to sit on the deck and grill a veritable feast.

We just finished reading Michael Singer’s The Untethered Soul, a great reminder that setting down expectations, and letting go of resistance to the reality before us can deepen the spiritual journey and return us to a peaceful center that allows us to engage with greater joy. The messages are nothing new, but it seems the stark and simple spiritual truths bear repetition, and Singer’s book has been a lovely companion and coach to our necessary adjustments to sprummertime. The cup isn’t half-filled or half-empty: it’s overflowing with blessing.

The slow life allows for the release of anxiety, to better focus on the gifts this fantastical sprummertime offers. Choosing to go with mystery’s flow makes the present our continual destination. ETA: Now. No point in resisting what is. Gardening—and life—are always co-created with the surprises Spirit and nature offer; the best we can do is bring attitudes of joy and gratitude to the journey. Hospitality isn’t just something we offer guests; we can offer it to every moment of our lives. Hello! What have you come to teach me?

Caed Mille Failte!

 

© Copyright of all visual and written materials on The Daily Round belongs solely to Catherine M. O’Meara, 2011-Present. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited, without the author’s written approval. No one is authorized to use Catherine O’Meara’s copyrighted material for material gain without the author’s engagement and written permission. All other visual, written, and linked materials are credited to their authors. Thank you, and gentle peace.

Gardening, Recipe, Winter

Tango in Winter

by Kitty6 Comments on Tango in Winter

It’s been snowing all day and the wind has made it fierce-going on the trail, but we nonetheless managed to cross the bridge and make our way through the bluster for a rather enlivening walk. Back inside Full Moon Cottage and thawing out with some ginger green tea, I decided to make a salad for dinner, but with enough heat, depth, and bite to stand up to winter, which has made its Maria Callas re-entrance today. The lime, cilantro, and hot sauce, though, brought the energies and smells of warmer seasons to mind.

Located “Pepe and the Bottled Blondes” and “Pink Martini” CD’s: Ay-yi-yi! (Or Thai equivalent.) Look out, 4-leggeds; Mama’s gotta dance!

The salad turned out well: at any rate, I enjoyed it while studying the landscape and fantasizing amidst a pile of garden catalogues and their enticing descriptions of new flowers, vegetables, and herbs. A terrific afternoon of dreaming.

And dancing.

The snow is beautiful; the hush it brings is lovely, but tonight I think I’ll close my eyes to the white-on-white landscape and dream in the colors and flavors of gardens yet-to-come.

Salsa, anyone?

Vegetable Salad in Peanut Sauce

(Everything’s approximate in my salads, just like it is when I make soup: adjust according to your taste.)

6 T rice wine vinegar

6 T sesame or vegetable oil

1/3 C Peanut Butter (I may have used more. Organic and chunky; creamy would be fine.)

3 T of brown sugar

3 T Tamari Sauce (or Soy; Tamari is without wheat and has more soy…)

2-3 T chopped ginger and/or powdered ginger

3 chopped cloves of garlic

2-3 T lime juice

4 T Thai chili-garlic sauce (I used more)

That’s the peanut sauce: Whisk it together and adjust it to the consistency, quantity, and tastes you like.

For the salad: I mixed some:

Red and green cabbage (sliced and chopped like coleslaw)

Chopped green onions

Big bunch of cilantro (chopped).

Julienne 4 carrots and 2 sweet potatoes, and microwave them to soften before adding.

 Cook/drain/add some brown-rice noodles. (About ½ lb, or amount that suits you.)

(Could add red/green peppers, maybe an apple or two, and some soft tofu cut into small squares, or shrimp …but didn’t have these on hand today.)

¡OLÉ!

© Copyright of all visual and written materials on The Daily Round belongs solely to Catherine M. O’Meara, 2011-Present. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited, without the author’s written approval. No one is authorized to use Catherine O’Meara’s copyrighted material for material gain without the author’s engagement and written permission. All other visual, written, and linked materials are credited to their authors. Thank you, and gentle peace. 

Community, Gardening, Green Living, Slow Food, Slow Life, Spirit Level

Slow Life and the Spirit

by Kitty4 Comments on Slow Life and the Spirit

When Phillip and I made a conscious decision to pursue a “slow life” together, we were led by others who have made the same decision to ground their choices and days in deliberate and focused sustainability and community connections.

 For us, a slow life is guided by a philosophical stance which believes that the spirit is deeply and truly fed only by intimate communion. To put it another way: living, relating, and buying locally allows us to be more fully present both to ourselves and to those who contribute to our well-being, as we contribute to theirs. This is not to promote an isolationist orientation or a denial of global connection and need, but to lessen the exhaustion and depletion of finite resources, to become mindful about right relationship with our neighbors, to redefine what constitutes “healthy living,” and to be earnest in clarifying the difference between desire and need.

 Far from feeling rigidly controlled, we’ve learned pursuing a slow life is exciting, creative, spacious, and fun.

 Savoring, noticing, attending, reflecting, listening, and being present are all practices that feed a slow life, and all are nourished by gratitude and balance. We commit to simplify in order to go deeper, and to more authentically value the common ground and the unique distinctions that define our days, relationships, seasons, community, and spirits. We deliberately honor the gifts that all of these create and offer for our enrichment.

Pierre Teilhard famously stated we’re spiritual beings having a physical, human experience. While we’re here on earth, this means our basic necessities of food, home, and clothing must be satisfied if our spirits are to thrive and evolve. It seems, though, that we’ve lost the connection between the pursuit of our basic needs and our spiritual health, as though spirit doesn’t enter into our choices and consciousness until not just our basic needs, but all of our (manufactured) desires, are met. Focused solely on the crazed pursuit of “more,” we have become disconnected from Source and source: we do not know where we, our food, our homes, and our clothing come from, nor at what cost to the earth and our neighbors. We do not relax and breathe unless we’re “on vacation,” when a lot of us routinely become ill from the anxiety, over-work, and imbalanced living we’ve consented to endure, often unconsciously.

 Slow living recognizes that spirit is (always) our essence, that the pursuit of basic necessities can be/is naturally spirit-fueled and intentional, and that the satisfaction of these needs can be creative, communal, and enough. A slow life is a consciously inspirited life.

 Homes can be green, energy use sustainable, clothing recycled, and food joyfully grown, locally procured, and communally shared. Our gifts and art can be recognized, encouraged, and shared in the production of the goods that meet our needs. We can “make a living” that is peace-filled and care-filled, and our businesses and interactions can be collaborative circles of collegiality rather than competitive, top-down hierarchies.

Small steps, in time, create new paths.

Grow a garden; join a CSA; shop at farmers’ markets. Seek and support restaurants like this: http://www.braiselocalfood.com and programs like this: http://wisconsinfoodie.com/

Make use of resale shops. Cull outgrown, unworn, disused, and unneeded possessions; recycle, reuse, and re-purpose creatively. Know where your material possessions are made and by whom; understand the dis-eased world you’re either perpetuating or choosing to change: http://video.pbs.org/video/1488092077/.

Live green: http://www.motherearthnews.com/Green-Homes.aspx

 Heal whenever, whatever, wherever you can, starting with yourself and your choices.

 A slow life offers continual invitations and opportunities to recall and connect with who we— truly—are: shards of a holy and ongoing Creative Impulse, interdependent and aware that our only home is Love.

 

© Copyright of all visual and written materials on The Daily Round belongs solely to Catherine M. O’Meara, 2011-Present. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited, without the author’s written approval. No one is authorized to use Catherine O’Meara’s copyrighted material for material gain without the author’s engagement and written permission. All other visual, written, and linked materials are credited to their authors. Thank you, and gentle peace.

Daily Round, Gardening, Nature, Spirit Level

The Writing Spider

by Kitty3 Comments on The Writing Spider

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single spider in possession of a good web must be in want of prey. But in the garden this season, I learned again that there are many ways we nourish and are nourished.

I first met Jane in early August, when I was weeding the large garden near the river. She had woven her distinct web across one of the sage plants, and its intricate stabilimenta zig-zagged, zipper-like, across the orb-web’s center. She was the largest and most brilliantly-colored garden spider I’d ever seen, so I fetched the camera and took several pictures from a respectful distance, and later researched her species and background. Her scientific classification was logical: Kingdom: Animalia; Phylum: Anthropoda; Class: Arachnida; Order: Araneae; Family: Araneidae; Genus: Argiope; and Species: Argiope Aurantia (like an orange, though she was colored in brilliant yellow and black).

When I learned that one of her nicknames is “the writing spider,” she of course became further classified as a kindred spirit, and I christened her “Jane” after Jane Austen, a name to which she did not evidence rejection. For more than a month, we met several times a week, and she hospitably endured my observations.

Understand, Gentle Reader, that were Jane to visit my home’s interior, the sound of my arachnophobic screams would make international (and possibly intergalactic) news, but spiders do not bother me when they are outside, weaving their webs and living their lives within the larger web of nature, the home we all share.

Miss Jane, I learned, liked to remain in one place for most of her life, a homebody like myself. The creation of her web took hours and its complexity was miraculous: its architecture could be up to two feet across and up to eight feet off the ground. She usually remained at the web’s midpoint, head down (as I always found her), awaiting innocent prey’s entanglement. When I met her, the remaining wing of a swallowtail butterfly decorated her web, as did bits and pieces of insects.

Jane consumed the center of her web each night, possibly for nourishment or to recycle chemicals used in the web’s construction, and re-wove it daily, including the delightful “written” zipper (“stabilimenta”) across the middle. I could not discover a definitive  explanation for this part of her web, except that some scientists have suggested it may serve as camouflage or in some way attract prey. I also learned that among orb-weavers, the Aurantia is known for her unusually tidy and clean web. Other orb-weavers are content with disorder, clutter, and mess. Jane rose yet again in my regard and respect.

I never met Jane’s mate. He would have woven a “lesser” web nearby, including an escape line in case she attacked him; at any rate, he died after their love was consummated and she likely ate him. (Understandably, my husband Phillip does not like this part of Jane’s story.) But Jane’s partner did exist, for one day I discovered the egg sac, a delicate brown silken ball almost an inch in diameter, fixed near the web’s enter, and Jane hanging nearby, guarding it as vigilantly as  any artist watches over her creation. I read that within this tiny ball, up to 1,400 eggs were settled and would be harbored till spring, were they not harmed by birds, the elements, or other likely hazards.

We had a gentle frost one night several weeks after Jane and I became garden companions, and Jane was nowhere to be found; it is the common way for females of her species to die. I mourned her loss; we had an elegant, mutually intriguing (or so it seemed to me) relationship.

When I cut back the plants this weekend and neared the sage that was Jane’s home, I gently severed the branch holding her egg sac, and placed it under an evergreen shrub, settled within a bed of sedum and violets.

If the egg sac survives through winter, one day next spring, I could see what seems to be pollen or dust collecting within the silken sac…the tiny bodies of Jane’s progeny responding to Love’s call to write their own life stories. I hope some will decide to stay and grace our gardens with the elegance and artistry—and kinship—I shared with their mother.

We’re all here such a precious little while, invited to write the words, dance the dance, and create the art seeded within our spirits at its inception; the whole of life depends upon both our singular contributions and our abilities to form connections that welcome, encourage, and sustain the unique contributions of others.

It may be in the nature of the Kingdom Animalia to capture and devour prey; however, the instinct to forge connection and co-exist with deep humility, hospitality, and respect is also a lovely part of our mysterious story. In relationship, we nourish and are nourished.

Thank you, Jane.

 

© Copyright of all visual and written materials on The Daily Round belongs solely to Catherine M. O’Meara, 2011-Present. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited, without the author’s written approval. No one is authorized to use Catherine O’Meara’s copyrighted material for material gain without the author’s engagement and written permission. All other visual, written, and linked materials are credited to their authors. Thank you, and gentle peace.

Catherine O'Meara

The Beginning…

by Kitty7 Comments on The Beginning…

I live and write in Full Moon Cottage on the Crawfish River, where my husband (Phillip) and our 4-legged companions (Clancy, Riley, Finnegan, Fiona, Mulligan, and Murphy), along with the changing seasons and many books, provide inspiration for my creative endeavors, including essay-writing, children’s books, gardening, cooking, and photography.

I try to practice yoga and meditation every day, but often find walking the Glacial Drumlin Trail, camera in hand, a greater source of meditative peace. Solvitur ambulando: It is solved by walking! (Or, at least, it’s not made worse.)

Often, walking leads to the discovery of meaning and connection where none at first seemed apparent; the puzzles of life fall into place and the daily round becomes hallowed. Consecrated life: the supposed mundane is transformed and revealed as sacred, as is the walker…

Recently, I’ve made a commitment to live a more consciously-designed “slow life.” What is really worthy of my finest energies and attention? Am I living authentically and using the gifts I brought to this brief and wonderful dance? Can a contemplative core and spirit-level perspective co-exist and remain vital in contemporary American culture, especially given its recent devolution into rampant incivility? With the support of my husband and 4-legged companions, along with a great blessing of friends, I’m setting out on the path and open to its discoveries.

 

© Copyright of all visual and written materials on The Daily Round belongs solely to Catherine M. O’Meara, 2011-Present. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited, without the author’s written approval. No one is authorized to use Catherine O’Meara’s copyrighted material for material gain without the author’s engagement and written permission. All other visual, written, and linked materials are credited to their authors. Thank you, and gentle peace.