Nature

I talk to plants. I mean, I don’t do this every day, but I have talked with some plants. I read how to do this in a book, The Secret Teachings of Plants, and I decided to try it myself.

I move my awareness to the middle of my chest. It’s usually in the middle of my head. I see it like a ball of white light moving from my head to my heart. I close my eyes, and tell the plant, “I want to speak with you and learn from you.” It also helps if I imagine myself filling the plant – into its leaves, into its branches, into its trunk, into its roots.

I love walking in a meadow of tall grasses. It’s like wading though dry water. I can hear the “swish, swish” of the grasses as they speak among themselves.

And then the best part – the high pitch hum of the crickets. Not individual crickets, but all of them united – one unending, beautiful sound. I always really like this sound, and look forward to hearing it. However, it became even more profound for me after I started meditating many years ago. Within 3 days, my ears started ringing during meditation with exactly this sound of the crickets.

Suppose earth itself can help make peace on earth, in your lifetime, starting right now – the end of violence – the end of the barbaric age.

Consider the oppressor.

Suppose our thoughts can help make peace on earth, in your lifetime, starting right now – the end of violence – the end of the barbaric age.

Consider the people being oppressed.

I picture them wandering now in a grove of trees, tall and pungent, with the ground moist and soft. I picture them happily stepping on stones to cross a brook, trickling, soothing.

I picture them walking thru an open meadow of tall grasses with a sun umbrella, sparrows appearing and disappearing.

It pains me to have to recycle glass jars, but we simply do not have room to store every jar we get.

Of course, many items in the store are packaged in plastic or cardboard. The day may come when there will no longer be glass jars.

When I was a little girl, each glass jar was put to use.

Garden life began for me at the age of 12. When my mother worried she was so busy she might not get her dahlias planted, I volunteered for the job. I seldom volunteered for chores on our busy family farm, but, even then, the magic of these flowering plants had me under their spell. Dahlias grow from thick, elongated roots called tubers that we dug each fall and stored for the winter. By springtime the gnarly clumps were like shriveled starfish, testing one’s faith any life could be left in those dusty, wrinkled remains.

Once a year in the fall, my uncle would drive us to a place filled with all kinds of fresh apples. They were in hundreds of tall, round baskets. The place was called Aspetuck. It was an old farm stand, a large wooden room, like a barn, filled with apples everywhere.

The aroma of the apples was overwhelming, like a perfume made from all the different kinds of apples. We’d bring the aroma home with us. And they were beautiful to look at, too. The yellow leaves had fallen, and were falling, all around us. This is pure New England fall.

Why does fire seem so alive?

That flame on a candle seems so peaceful, so meditative -- like it, itself, is putting out a presence.

A candlelit dinner. How charming.

One of the houses I pass on my walk has a gaslight lamp, that always has a flame burning.

I really like that.

I remember sparklers that we would light on the fourth of July. They’d leave a trail of light in the night air.

Perhaps these things remind us of our own sparkling light.

When Bruce and I were first married, we discovered Jones’ Family Farm, and started a tradition.

Each October we’d go to the farm and pick out a huge pumpkin. Then we’d bring it home, and work all weekend to make pies (usually 9) and loaves (usually 6).

Sometimes, we’d make pumpkin cookies or pumpkin pancakes (not a big hit). We’d cook the seeds. Then we’d distribute the pies to my parents and my brother Mike, Bruce’s parents, aunties, neighbors, etc.

I’d always bring some in for the teacher’s lounge at Second Hill Lane School.