May Thoughts

“The library in summer is the most wonderful thing because there you get books on any subject and read them each for only as long as they hold your interest, abandoning any that don't, halfway or a quarter of the way through if you like, and store up all that knowledge in the happy corners of your mind for your own self and not to show off how much you know or spit it back at your teacher on a test paper.”  ― Polly Horvath, My One Hundred Adventures

There are many things that mark the approaching of summer. For us, it is sweeping the back deck, lighting the BBQ and turning on the AC. For me, specifically, it is bringing my laptop outside, arranging myself to avoid the glare of the sun, and catching up on blogging.

I anticipate all the wonderful adventures I’ll have while sitting on the porch, a stack of library books nearby and a cold glass of tea at my elbow. Late spring and early summer are also the only time of year that I bother to light up a cigarette and accompany it with a chilled glass of quality wine. (Alas, having not planned ahead today, I am making due with Turning Leaf!) By the way, I wouldn’t decline a nice cigar and a glass of port were you to offer them.

My front garden is already a visual banquet, spring bulbs giving way to early summer delicacies such as woolly lambs ear and tantalizing dianthus blooms, and bleeding hears mounding over the beds edges as haphazardly as a toddler with a crayon and no sense of “staying in the lines”.

Our front garden, late spring 2012

The finches, cardinals and sparrows have awakened me with morning song for a month. Now robins and woodpeckers have added their voices to the chorus. All yield their place to evening frogs and crickets. Fireflies are soon to come, lucibufagen-crammed coryphées joining nature’s ballet and imbuing the humid air with tantalizing yellow sparks.

photo courtesy of www.firefly.org

The carpenter bees have returned, beautiful queens probing my deck posts and beams in search of a nesting place. I adore these placid gems. Their buzzing is hypnotic. They’ll keep the wasps at bay. It takes a lot of effort to piss off a carpenter bee (they’ve survived the slimy confines of Nutmeg’s mouth without offering a sting).

Eastern Carpenter Bee (Xylocopa virginica), our porch 2011

“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”  ― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

I do not know what summer will bring. I would like for it to be productive. I’m in search of a job. I’m part of the Air Force auxiliary (a wonderful organization which I shall not name here lest I represent it in a bad light) and I serve as part of a flight crew, a mission observer during search and rescue missions. This is our busy season. Its public service and I volunteer myself gladly for it. It allows me to enjoy a bit of aerial photography, my favorite hobby. It does not pay, however, and our funds are especially tight this year.

I have only one “honey do”project to work on, thanks to those limited funds. We’ve taken up the carpet in the hall and on the stairs and I intend to repaint everything using leftover paint from our kitchen renovation. I’m absolutely tickled that the contractors left the cans with us.

We’ll also scrap together some spare cash to purchase a few garden goodies. I can’t live without my Roma tomatoes, banana peppers and zucchini. These I’ll grow in pots on the deck, tending them with love and water and fanatically checking them each day to see if anything has grown large enough to eat. Nothing is as satisfying as plucking a juicy tomato and eating it raw seconds later.

Hungarian (banana) pepper bloom, our porch 2011

The sun has set and the frogs have made their locations known.  The moon will be close to the earth tonight and we’ll have a lovely treat if the clouds slip away.  I’ll join Better Half shortly and we’ll perhaps put on a movie.

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Reacting, Repressing, and Tea

Is it possible to go through life each day with a "clear mind" and in a "meditative state"? Is it possible to divorce ourselves from the world, or to "be one" with it at all times, repressing the natural urge to react in what we perceive to be a negative response (screaming, crying, shouting, biting...)

The students in the monastery were in total awe of the elder monk, not because he was strict, but because nothing ever seemed to upset or ruffle him. So they found him a bit unearthly and even frightening.

One day they decided to put him to a test. A bunch of them very quietly hid in a dark corner of one of the hallways, and waited for the monk to walk by. Within moments, the old man appeared, carrying a cup of hot tea. Just as he passed by, the students all rushed out at him screaming as loud as they could.

But the monk showed no reaction whatsoever. He peacefully made his way to a small table at the end of the hall, gently placed the cup down, and then, leaning against the wall, cried out with shock, "Ohhhhh!"

I remember my last month in my first Real Apartment. I was 18 and had just lost my job. I scraped up every last bit of cash to be found and brought it to the landlord. How sad for him that it was close to $150 in coins and crumpled dollar bills. He was angry. He shouted. He said things to me that were rude. His behavior scared me. Reacting to it in a negative way (screaming back, being spiteful or cursing at him) wouldn’t solve my immediate issue, and I had indeed paid the full rent and was not in the wrong. Why should I be upset just because his reaction to the form of payment was poor? How he chose to interact with the world was his issue and not mine. I shook off my fear as I walked back to my apartment.

How we react to a situation is important. Human beings tend to let Ego (I!) govern their existence. Our reaction is based upon a sense of self (who doesn’t think they aren’t the center of their own little universe?) and how the self is feeling at any particular time about any particular thing.

Cheri Huber, a student and teacher of Zen for over thirty years, explains it very simply it "That Which You Are Seeking is Causing You to Seek".
 

I have lost my favorite teacup. I have two choices.
I can have lost my teacup and be miserable.
I can have lost my teacup and be all right.
In either case, the teacup is gone.

Gnashing and wailing won’t make a problem go away. The key is to accept that the problem happened, not punish myself or others for a lost cup, and move on.

In the story at the beginning of this entry, I shared the story of the unflappable monk who wasn’t immediately fazed when the students jumped out and shouted. He didn’t spill a drop of tea. He was aware of the situation and did not react until after he had gone to a table and put his cup down. He then leaned against the wall and cried out with shock.

If we are feeling an emotion but telling ourselves to repress it, then it is repressed and repressing us. We become emotionally or physically unwell. If we are feeling an emotion and choose to cling to it, then it governs us and we live our lives in a state of stress and negate our own well-being. Be gracious enough to allow yourself to feel the emotion and then allow it to fizzle away. New feelings and emotions come along every day, after all. Dwelling on the feeling or situation (picking at scabs!) won't change the past.

“Don’t get scared/angry/sad” won't work. Getting scared or angry is natural. We shouldn't punish ourselves for naturally reacting to our environment.

“Do not be scared/angry/sad” is better. It is okay to feel these emotions as long as we don't allow them to define us and how we will be.  We can be aware that something has occurred and accept that the situation happened.

This line of thinking opens up a whole new possibility: we can cope with the situation itself.

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