Early Morning Manifestations

Friday morning.  Cars rush by in front of the Temple.  Trucks too.  Out here on the porch, I can guess the size of the vehicle from the volume and texture of the sound.  At this time of day, they mostly head east on Pleasant Street – toward downtown.  Like bees streaming out of the hive toward a freshly found patch of flowers, each one seems full of purpose. 

As I listen, it’s a mystery to me – that each passenger in each vehicle is following something of great importance.  Their quick apprehension in my ears is just a glimpse of a particular and unimaginably complex unfolding of a human beingness.

Each life a whole universe – a singular big bang – an inexplicable manifestation of matter out of nothingness.  And each only here briefly.  Each one on a journey to twinkle out of existence.

Meanwhile the crab apple blossoms float effortlessly like so many tiny white negligees hung out to dry. 

The ground under the greening azalea is littered with purple petals. 

The tip of my inspirational nose is pleasantly cool in the fresh morning air.

The Mysterious Journey Begins Again

Waking up this morning, I discover that I’m quite happy about the seeds I started yesterday.  Just nasturtiums and zinnias, but an abundance of each.  Enough to cover the barren hillside behind the Temple with lush late summer green and orange.  Enough to edge the by-then-boring hostas near the granite Buddha with pastel blossoms fit for an occasion of great importance.

The flaky brown chips and small withered balls I poke carefully down into their separate little dirt homes reveal nothing of their destination.  But I already see their fruition of bright blossoms.  

Knowing they are beginning their mysterious journey gives me great comfort as I contemplate writing the perfect ‘pitch letter’ and making decisions about my upscoming new web site and accomplishing the other impossible tasks that are my lot today.

Where does beauty come from? 

How can it be so persistent and dependable despite my perpetual misgivings? 

I go inside and stare at the wet cubicles of dirt on the counter of my office to see what I can learn.

A Haphazard Campaign

            Moist air.  

            Almost warm outside at daybreak, but I still wear a light jacket and wool hat for comfort. Slowly touring the gardens, my tea steeps in a glass pot on the kitchen counter.

Though this is a pleasure stroll, I occasionally stop and engage in my ongoing battle against the wild mustard.  Last year, I noticed just a few of these cute little weeds with roundish leaves.  They looked innocent enough and I ignored them.  But by late spring, they revealed their true intention---now three feet tall and spreading, they had monopolized whole swatches of the back landscape.  

So I’ve begun a haphazard campaign to abort this year’s crop before it flowers and seeds. 

Every time I walk through the back woodland gardens, I stop to pull up four or five, or ten of the little fellas.  Extracting them, roots and all, I toss them into a small pile and leave them there to melt back into the earth. 

I try not to do too much.  Then it would become work.  Just a little here and there gives me a sense of satisfaction, and, I hope, makes some cumulative difference. 

I pull a few and just keep walking.  I don’t want my tea to get too strong.  Or miss the best part of the day for writing.

Am I Becoming a Twit?

          Just now standing on the edge of social media as a way to communicate.  My book (This Truth Never Fails) launch is only nine weeks away and ‘everyone’ says that social media is an essential part of getting the word out.  Though, to most of my generation, Twitter appears an undifferentiated sea of words sent out randomly by people too tethered to their smart-phones and distracted from what is around them.  But now, in just dipping my toe in the water, I begin to see the patterns and personalities and meanings that were not visible from a distance. Or is it just me? 

     Follow me at davidrynick@davidrynick   (or something like that)

Azalea Dreams

Still cold in the early morning spring – I put on my shiney orange super-hero jacket and my blue spirit-of-the-water hat.  Then out back to the azalea – the purple-full-blooming-beneath-the-bare-crab-apple azalea.  (As I write, I notice that I like the word azalea.   So many a’s and the precious z – as if there were a zebra hiding in there or this were the perfect solution to a mysterious set of Scrabble letters.)  

     In this cool weather we’ve been having – the pinky purple azalea blossoms have been out for nearly two weeks.  A long life for these extravagant and tissue thin creations.

      I stand in front of this particular bush trying to learn something.  

     I wonder if the ancestors of this azalea wandered the hills of China?  Maybe one once grew near a hermit’s hut.  I suspect he was only a mediocre hermit.  Not one of the real high class guys who lots of people visit and then tell stories about how awesome he is.  Just one of the hermits where it was hard to know whether he was on a spiritual path, or just a kooky guy living in the woods.  It wasn’t clear whether his life was a success or a failure.  And maybe he doubted too, but was somehow faithful.              

     Whoever he was, I imagine he loved the azalea that bloomed near his hut.  Through the cold winter he was content enough, but secretly he longed for the easy warmth of summer.  This azalea may have been his unrestrained reminder of returning life.  How could he help but smile deep in his belly?   Facing this quick manifestation of the irrepressible fullness that is already proceeding - even while the trees are still barren and the chill of winter lingers in the air.

Making the Right Decision

My forthcoming book has become the focus of my life.  New energy swirls around me as I have conversations with booksellers, web site designers, social media consultants, public relations specialists.  There is no end to what could be done.  I’m thrilled.  Delighted with possibility.  And slightly overwhelmed. 

Who to choose to work with? 

What to do and not do? 

How much is enough?’

My forever personal consultant and sister gently reminds me, when I speak with her on the phone, to step back and trust the feeling that arises in my body.  She’s right.  I find my body wisdom much more reliable than my head wisdom.  I’m liable to get excited about almost everything I encounter.  And from the place of heady possibility, I don't know how to decide.  I'm constantly afraid of making the wrong decision.  

So today – to remember to take what our Zen ancestor Dogen called ‘the backward step.’  To step back from the momentum of the forward leaning excitement and worry.  To notice my fleshy life of THIS moment even as I dream into some bright and wonderful future. 

Feet on the ground.

Breath in the belly.

Trusting the subtle sense

still quietly arising

amid the hubbub.

Faded Flowers

The daffodils that were drooping outside after the hard frost last week didn’t last long when I brought them into my room.  Just a few days.  Their already thin yellow petals became quickly even thinner and more translucent – almost like the skin of a very old person.  The formerly extended petals curled back in toward the center and lost their liveliness.  There was still water in the vase, but the flowers were clearly dead. 

            I’m not very good at taking out the dead flowers like I should.  For one thing, I’m never sure they’re really dead.   I always suspect some lingering life.  And weren’t they dead when I cut them from the plant?  Is it that I appreciate the fading – the slow vanishing of the intimate wetness of life?  Or is it more inertia and laziness?

I don’t have a philosophical or aesthetic problem with dead flowers sitting on my desk.  Of course, I often don’t have a problem with a pile of clothes on the floor of my room.  Something else shiny and bright catches my attention – the next thing blooming buds in the garden – the next project that has me putting things together.  I am easily distracted by the quickening of life.

But yesterday, I brought the faded flowers down to the kitchen.  And this morning, I took them out to the compost.  And I just hung up some random shirts and put some sox in the laundry basket in my closet.  Now if I can just sort though the pile of papers on my filing cabinet, I’ll be all set.