September's Summer Sunday

As I soaked in the last Sunday of summer 2010 by weeding my scandalously overgrown meditation garden, I felt an unfamiliar sense of calm. Not feeling particularly reflective or anticipatory, my mind became quiet for the first time in many months. I wondered, Am I actually living in the moment? It was a fleeting thought, but there nevertheless.

In Praise of Mushrooms

There's something so mysterious about mushrooms. Not a plant, not a root, but a spore, they appear as if by magic. Mycological societies are incredibly popular in Europe, where the mushroom community bespeaks culture and tradition, where mushroom varieties have been catalogued for many generations. Not so much in North America, where the problem of identifying mushrooms is two-fold: a lack of previously established guides and the vastness of the region. To find a mushroom in the wild and determine if it is edible, even with a guide, is risky business. My great-grandmother used to send the children off to hunt mushrooms, soaking their finds in a tub, and throwing in a coin. If the coin stayed clean, the mushrooms were edible. If it turned green, she said she didn't believe in old wives' tales and ate the mushrooms anyway.
We took the safer route last year, purchasing a block of shitake mushroom spores on line for $30. After watering the darn thing twice a day with well water from Potic Cottage, I emerged with two mushrooms (what's that, $15 each?!), until the basement flooded and generated a third. At that rate, I might as well buy a shaving of black truffles.
Why all this talk about mushrooms today, you might very well ask. As I gear up for a week in the studio, I'm looking to all sorts of places for inspiration: field guides, photography, museums, literature, the garden, the city skyline, dreams, children's drawings. I'm not sure if anything will come out of it in terms of a painting or two, but I can say I'm quite enjoying the quest.

Chop Wood, Carry Water

Here's a photo essay of the 'Before and After' of the meditation garden clean up.

Every year I swear I'm going to clean it out in the fall to prevent unwanted mold and blight, yet when early autumn rolls around, I can only savor the last moments of greenery. By the time the leaves are down and blanket the garden, I seem to lack the spare afternoon or energy to put the garden to bed properly. Instead I tell myself the ground will stay warm and cozy until spring's clean up.

Yesterday's clean up was especially grand with its warm sunshine after a long winter. I turned on the last of a great audiobook-- Hunting Unicorns by Bella Pollen-- and savored the afternoon preparing for this year's herbs and flowers, celebrating its completion with Clara, James, and a bottle of prosecco.

One's Devotion

The Morgan Library has a fascinating illuminated manuscript show up right now, Demons and Devotion. It features the work of Catherine of Cleves, who created the manuscript in 1440 in the Netherlands. I simply have to get to this show.

First, I love the combination of text and image-- it lends itself to a surreal narrative. Secondly, in order to catch all the details of the illuminated manusripts, viewers are forced to get close to the image, creating an intimacy that large artwork lacks. And how can you not love the fact that this is a female whose devotion to art and God led her to create these fascinating images? It reminds me of Hildegard Von Bingen, a woman whose talent was recognized even in the 12 century. Writer, musician, artist, Bingen combined her visions of God with her passion to create. If you haven't heard her ethereal chants, you should.

These women fought the conventions of their times to express themselves, so on a Sunday morning in Lent, it seems only fitting that my own devotion leads me to some studio time of my own.

Time Out for Travel

Alas dear readers, I'm heading off to Key West for family time. Of course the trip will offer a host of new blog entries, so never fear, I'll be packing a camera, sketchbook, and new flip camera along with sandals and sunscreen. Cheers and Peace.

Hurry Up and Relax

It was the perfect night to steal ten minutes to sit in the meditation garden. Actually, it was on my to-do list. Life gets so crowded that I sometimes leave quiet reflection somewhere on the bottom of the pile. But tonight was different: it was a homework assignment. As I watched my students dutifully write "meditate for ten minutes in nature" in their agenda books, I knew I had to make the time to do so as well.

Elizabeth Gilbert has a great account of trying to calm her thoughts during meditation in her memoir Eat, Pray, Love. Cluttered and random, her thoughts stream wildly until she learns how to stop the tide. I'm no different. It's hard for me to stop and sit still without generating another list or replaying the days events. It was even a challenge to sit for ten minutes just now and prevent myself from composing this entry when I was supposed to be silencing my thoughts. What did I do? I began to listen, trying to focus all of my attention on what I was hearing. A lawn mower, passing cars, wind in the leaves, crickets, playing in a yard. Then I began to see. Fading sunlight, flowing clouds, a spider in a web. Am I calmer for it? Definitely. In fact, I may take the next ten minutes and do it again.

Want Vs Need

Whenever the leaves start to change, I break out Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. It’s so American, the notion of building one’s house from scratch, reflecting that upstart, self-reliance as if creating one’s own identity anew. Since those Transcendental ways, our nation has moved away from our pioneer principles, instead becoming a nation of ‘want.’ Buying on credit, storing our excess in metal units, discarding last year’s model in landfills, the lines between want and need are blurred into an obscure mist. Sitting alone, meditating in nature, watching a pond as Thoreau did, has certainly gone out of vogue, but there are signs of its reemergence. Just this weekend, I read about a woman who learned to fix her own plumbing, about the uptick in craft sales, and about a man who swam across Walden pond. A sign of the times, no doubt. As the recession struck a blow to our consumerist psyche, the collective reassessment of how we spend our money grows into how we spend our time. Is it better to have less stuff, but more time? A year ago, many would have opted for stuff, but the idea that we lose fleeting moments of our lives paying for unnecessary expenditures has become too costly in the end. And yet, a life without a certain bit of clutter seems too orderly for me. Where is the balance?

So I look to Walden. The house, a small shed by today’s standards, reminds us of what we don’t need, and what we do. Thoreau seemed quite content during his time there, but would it work today? As the scale of the average American home has grown, has it made us any happier? Is all that space what we really need, or simply what we want? How has it affected our sense of family and community? The Rural Studio, founded by Samuel Mockbee at Auburn University’s Architecture School, James’ alma mater, has put together a modern Walden. Seen here in Dwell magazine, the house can be built for $20,000, clearly what some could easily pay for kitchen cabinets. Now I’m certainly not a purist nor a minimalist; however I do want to consider how I spend money, how I fill the spaces around me, and definitely how I spend my time. Perhaps the greatest luxury item we can give ourselves these days is Thoreau’s simple recipe: peace and quiet.

The Zen of Maintenence

I've become one with my straw broom. Unlike its noisy, polluting cousin, aka the leaf blower, there's something soothing about sweeping away winter's dead leaves and branches to make way for spring. When I cleaned out the meditation garden recently, I discovered some day lillies already breaking ground.

The garden itself was a surprise, a cozy space created between the new addition and our house. Its limited sensory experience gives it a quiet that's sometimes lacking from the rest of our busy house, so I dubbed it the meditation garden. I've thrown in all sorts of symbols to the space: a wrought iron cross, a statue of Vishnu, another of Buddha, as well as some secular offerings: a sun dial, bird houses, and James's bronze sculptures of airplanes. But it was the addition of the gong that transformed the space. (In fact, as I type this, I hear one of the children banging away.) Gong meditation-- hit the gong and listen to the range of reverberation-- trains the mind to focus on one element. Of course it's a huge 'hit' at parties where we learn about our guests by their gonging techniques. One lovely and quiet young woman nearly dented the gong with her forceful approach. Who knew?

It's very rare that I've actually had time to meditate in the garden. Oftentimes I get there and see something that needs watering or weeding, so instead of "OM", I'm pulling out the hose or digging in the dirt. During this last clean up, I decided to take the time to consider each detail and activity with mindfulness, blocking out everything else. When I was done, I felt more refreshed than if I had simply forced my way through the chores, hoping to finish with enough time to meditate. But with my straw broom, later is now.