CrankyBuddhist   the learning never ends …

One of the things about living in the SF Bay Area is that the seasons of the year are all twisted. That story used to demonstrate the possibility of reincarnation, you know the one, about the leaves falling from the trees in the fall and sprouting again in the spring doesn’t really apply here. Well, it does and it doesn’t. It depends on which tree you happen to be looking at.

So while people in other areas of the country are contemplating sweeping snow and driving on ice, I’ve been going out into the yard to play in the dirt. We had a good rain here a couple of weeks ago so things started to sprout. I’ve been showering the yard with water on occasion, ever since the rain, in hopes that the bulbs will soon bloom. The garden out in front of the house is sort of a mystery. No one really knows what exactly is planted there. The Calla Lilies are obvious, and so is the Rosemary and Heliotrope and the Japanese Maple Tree. But the bulbs are starting shoot leaves and some Cyclamens appeared on the porch and those will go into pots.

It feels good to get my hands in the dirt, planting something that will grow and live and give pleasure to all those who walk by …

Here in Northern California the roses are blooming. I’ve spent months stopping every few feet on our morning and evening walks so that the dog can sniff the grass and mark his trail. Now the dog waits patiently for me as we stop at every other house so that I can smell and inspect the roses in their front yard – buds, blooms, and fading dropping petals in all the colors a rose can be.

Stop and smell the roses isn’t the cliche I once thought it was. Maybe it takes getting a little older to really appreciate, not only the phrase, but the flower itself. And how fleeting the rose is. Sturdy and fragile at the same time. A delicate bitch of a flower. Difficult to grow. High maintenance. But worth it.

Contemplating the rose is a meditation. Take a moment to really focus on the flower and you’ll find that, in that moment, nothing else matters.

As the dog was walking me this morning, as he so often does, we were having a nice peaceful stroll through the Berkeley Campus and then off onto a side street where there were gardeners working.

Dust was blowing and leaves were flying and the noise was, well, noisy.

So it occurred to me to wonder about how much nicer it would be for everyone involved, if people paid their gardeners a little more per hour to not use blowers, mowers, and electric clippers.

Think about it. Raking, sweeping, mowing, and clipping by hand uses no petrol or electricity and makes no noise other than the pleasant rhythm of the clip, clip, clip, or swoosh, swoosh, swoosh … The gardeners are still getting paid by the hour, so who cares if they do twenty houses a day or two? They’d also get a better workout and be healthier for not breathing the fumes or the dust. More people could be employed for longer periods of time.

And, us folk who don’t have gardeners don’t have to listen to it!

Boy, it took a lot of self-control to not write that last sentence in all caps. :)

What’s good for the environment is good for the soul!