Health & Spirituality

Recently a friend and I discussed the change a person goes through during an "emergency".  I had always believed that an emergency occurs and you deal with it as best as you can under the circumstances.  Then as your consciousness changes due to this crisis, your spirituality also shifts.  My friend believes that the "emergency" happens due to an already shifting spiritual awakening. Maybe because energy is going to your spiritual awakening, therefore your body weakens?  Either way, you "emerge" differently......

Kuan Yin - Goddess of Compassion & Mercy

"Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny." 

--Mahatma Gandhi

 

Working the Soil

I have always planted a vegetable garden.  In my teenage California "hippy" days, I would put on my overalls and work a plot of land in my parents backyard.  I made manure tea to fertilize my garden and I put out tins of beer to attract the snails.  I read my grandmothers book on Victory Gardening. I grew enormous sunflowers to attract the birds and lovingly tended my little patch of earth. 

I think this connection to the earth was somehow passed down to me through my parents who in their 80's, still love to garden.  My grandfather also loved to garden and he grew onions and lettuce beneath his rose bushes.  From him I learned how to propagate new roses and how to intertwine veggies and flowers. 




Whenever I am struggling with big life issues, my first instinct is to put on my gardening gloves and work in the warm soil.  There is something that renews my spirit in seeing plants grow. It also gives me some quite time to "chew" on these problems and to settle them within my body.

 

Today I started my 2011 veggie garden with tomatoes, zucchini, beans, herbs, sunflowers and zinnias. The veggies are going in a little late due to my recent travels and some cold weather.  But last weekend Mr. B. tilled the soil and added some compost to wake it up a little!  Tomorrow I will have to add a little fence around the plot as my two doggies have decided they love my carrots, beans, tomatoes and especially the strawberries! 


All photos are from last years crop!  Mmmm.....



 

"When the deepest part of you becomes engaged in what you are doing, when your activities and actions become gratifying and purposeful, when what you do serves both yourself and others, when you do not tire within but seek the sweet satisfaction of your life and your work, you are doing what you were meant to be doing." — Gary Zukav

Natures Comfort

Every morning I wake to birdsong, although lately there has been a little lamb bleating from somewhere across the creek, along with a very young rooster who starts to crow at 2:30am....yipes!

Year round we have a flock of Canadian Geese overhead or down the creek and an occasional turkey or more often a night time skunk. Last night we heard two Coyote's for the first time in awhile.  There are a lot of squirrels and deer that like to nibble my rose buds.

We don't live in the country but in a semi-rural suburban neighborhood. I like these sounds as it feels comforting to live with nature. As I get older, I find I have trouble killing a spider or an ant. Even snails that destroy my garden give me pause as I just fling them away from my garden instead of mushing them like I used to. Is this because I am older and have more respect for life?

This morning I found myself cheering for a bee that came through our bedroom screen door....while my husband was trying to find the electric bug-zapper, I was cheering for the bee to escape before he came back...................the bee escaped! .......yes....!  Although, I'm still not sure how I feel about living with a mosquito all night long.....itch, itch....! I grew up in this neighborhood that we still live in and when I was small, there where so many toads every summer that you could not walk across our lawn in the evening with out stepping on one...where did they all go?   I know some of them went down the back of my blouse to be squished by my two brothers who .....were boys....and my loving brothers....who liked to torture me!  But there used to be thousand's of these toads and tadpoles....also, there used to be Walnut tree's in Walnut Creek as well as Oak trees in Oakland.  Mr. b always says, "Places are named for things that they destroy"....like Walnut Creek and Oakland. 

“Birdsong brings relief

to my longing

I’m just as ecstatic

as they are,

but with nothing to say!

Please universal soul,

practice some song or

something through me!”

--Rumi

Happy Mothers Day

"A Mother holds her children's hands for a while...their hearts forever"