20 Jun
It’s Reiki Level 1 Certification Day in Goshen, and it smells and looks like a garden inside and out. This morning’s bouquets (click the photos for larger views):
Window units of yarrow, lavender, thyme, oregano and carrot
I always love bathroom bouquets.
She smells sea kale down by the sea shells. (Watering can designed and crafted by sweet Tania Marie.)
18 Oct
Today, my friend Jerry of the Large Truck helped me gather concrete blocks to line our landlord’s garage (a barrier between mulch and siding), straw bales for winterizing beds, rebar for protecting trees with chicken wire, and potting soil for winter sowing herbs. The guy at the concrete pickup commented, “Well, surely, your garden must be just about done, isn’t it? All packed up?” Um, not exactly. I told him I grow all fall and winter, and things were still quite lush, thank you very much. 🙂
As integrated beings who are part of Nature, we can hold, embody and honor all the contrasts, both the flowering abundance and the rotting into compost, which brings forth fertility and life. As one season fades into another, we need not mourn or fear what comes. Death is part of life, and if you keep sowing seeds, then life keeps popping up throughout the year. Today’s misty Northern California weather surrounds the flowers like a soft blanket of autumn beauty. From my heart to yours, enjoy!
Greetings from the front yard
The central front bed with reblooming snapdragons, mums, zinnias, sea kale and other bee and butterfly havens
asters, hyssop, lavender, iris, black eyed Susans and more up front
perennial hollyhocks that will bloom each year, along side the newly placed concrete to protect the landlord’s garage
alley side grapes, raspberries, with poke poking out in the background
new alley-side garden bed with concrete liners
back yard beds
glorious sedum, marigolds, nasturtium and black eyed Susan’s with a peek of rose
apple tree and friends — aronia berry, jostaberry, marigolds, strawberries and more
cherry tree and friends — in the spring we’ll see flowering chives and daffodils
first ripe lemon
first ripe fairy tale pumpkin
cosmos and compost –with brassicas
nearly finished tomato beds with lavender, daikon radish, marigolds, tomatillos and parsley filling in the blanks
straw bales ready for putting this bed to bed
back yard beauty
22 Jul
Just a quick post today to share why I love summer gardening season and the gorgeous raw food creations we can make with fresh food. David’s been working only five minutes away from home this week, which means we get to have lunch together. Yesterday, I made a raw almond mock “tuna” pâté (complete with homegrown lovage instead of celery and the first green pepper of the season), and featured it over freshly picked salad greens, tomatoes, cucumbers, chives, and edible flowers from the garden, along with carrots and beets from a local farm:
And today, we had the leftovers, made into something completely different:
Bouquet picked this morning, plus nori wraps filled with leftover nut pâté, carrots and another cucumber, and then tree collard wraps filled with nut pâté, avocado, fresh tomato, carrots and cukes. We spread a little umeboshi plum paste on the wraps at lunch for a sweet, tangy, salty pop! No, I did not grow the avocados or almonds in this dish, but yes, we do have a cold hardy avocado tree. One day, those avo’s will be reallllly fresh! Until then, the co-op works well.
Raw food delights all the senses. So grateful for such beauty and bounty!
12 Apr
Another inspiring and insightful offering from Julian Rose:
The World Is Our Garden – Defend It or Lose It
By Julian Rose
When we walk into a carefully nurtured and diverse garden, we are struck by its beauty and its sense of completeness. We are enraptured by its scents and its mysteries. We are enlivened by its colours, both vivid and subtle, and we are nourished by the freshness that fills our lungs.
Altogether, the majority of sentient beings will surely concur, this garden is a most agreeable place to be – and should someone emerge who threatens to desecrate this sacred space – the reaction will be to jump to its defence and protect it against such a criminal action.
So let us consider the fact that many a wise person and many a spiritual leader has felt impelled to point out that “The World Is Our Garden” and that it should therefore be tended, nurtured and defended in the same way as the private space in which we grow our flowers, fruits, vegetables and herbs. Emotionally, we should make no distinction between these micro and macro spheres.
Yet look around today and what do we see?
Certainly there are many mortals tending their individual gardens, and many more with no physical garden to tend. But amongst of all these, just a tiny minority can be found who are willing to go out of their way to stand-up for that greater garden called planet Earth.
Even amongst those who would class themselves as ‘aware’ and advancing along the path of spiritual enlightenment, one finds too few ready and willing to actively defend the greater whole in the same spirit as they readily defend and tend their ‘own’ private space. Be that space the place where one cultivates one’s spiritual growth – or the physical space that is one’s own garden.
The act of ‘ownership’ appears to have overridden and nullified our ability to feel and apply a sense of innate responsibility for that which we don’t ‘own’.
The neo-liberal capitalist/consumerist conditioning that forms a major part of nearly all our educations – has not taught us to feel responsible for all life – but only that part in which we have invested our personal interest and financial resources.
We need reminding that we are the collective trustees of this unique living entity that sustains and provides us with all our needs for the duration of our lives – and beyond.
Let us question our supposed ‘spirituality’ in the light of our unwillingness to lay ourselves on the line to fight for the survival of that which enables us to eat, drink, breathe and take pleasure in its abundant generosity.
You see, if we had been entrained from an early age to respond spontaneously to the life giving heart beat of our planetary existence, we would make no distinction between empathy for the garden of Gaia and empathy for our own private garden. Empathy for all children and empathy for our own children .. and so on.
We would recognize that the manifestation of our protective instinct to operate only around that which we consider ‘belongs to us’ is a gross distortion of our natural instincts.
Why do I say that?
Consider for a moment that you are sitting in your garden and someone comes through the gate with a chain-saw and proceeds to set about felling your favourite fruit tree … what would you do?
Well, you would almost certainly spring up from your chair and rush to stop them. Now let us shift to a similar incident where a beautiful tree in a park on the other side of your garden fence is indiscriminately approached by a man wielding a chain saw who clearly has no business to be there. It is clear that this person has the intention of cutting down this tree … what would your reaction be to this? Would you try to apprehend this person? Try to find help? Feel a sense of outrage?
There is a chance that you might respond in all these ways; but there is a much greater likelihood that, after experiencing some initial discomfort at the brazenness of this destructive intent, you would take no action, consoling yourself with the thought “There’s nothing I can do about it anyway”. With that thought uppermost in your mind you would try to ignore the incident and get on with what you were doing.
If our education system had even a smidgeon of spiritual aspiration written into its curriculum – we would be encouraged to recognize our responsibility for all life on this planet from an early age – and be encouraged to come to its rescue at times when it is clearly under threat.
But that is not what the majority of schooling is about. On the contrary, it concentrates its energies on teaching us how to acquire the means to ‘own’ some little niche of this planet, and to accumulate the thousands of bits and pieces that are deemed necessary to furnish it. God forbid that we might decide to reject the trappings of this hallowed road to hell!
Every TV advert, commercial hoarding, glitzy magazine, shop window, internet and cinema screen – is imploring us to indulge in a consumptive way of life that both precludes gaining a greater awareness of our predicament, and contributes to the inevitable rape of the planetary resources upon which we all depend.
The rising consciousness that comes with our spiritual practice also has the affect of alerting us to the destructive nature of this consumptive life style and the majority of jobs that constitute the repetitive and largely sterile working week.
We see more and more clearly how, if we are caught in this mechanism, we are just a cog in a vast machine whose overall ambition is precisely the opposite of that which inspires our spiritual endeavours.
It soon becomes obvious that we have to make a choice: find a form of work that satisfies our rising sense of discernment and is supportive of the trusteeship of planet earth, or give-in to the demands and promises of the corporate state that so relentlessly undermines all that is subtle, beautiful and spiritually fulfilling in this day to day adventure called Life.
The new society so many of us long for can only come about if we take the necessary actions to bring it about. One cannot embark upon a path to higher consciousness while ignoring the damage done through the way one conducts one’s daily life. In order to realise our deeper selves and sleeping spiritual powers, we have to bring all aspects of our lives into line with our rising consciousness.
This means embarking upon a disciplined transition away from reliance upon the crude and destructive commercial edifices of the status quo – such as long food mile, profit hungry supermarket chains; highly corrupted large scale banking institutions; agrichemically and genetically modified ‘convenience’ foods; unnecessarily large gas guzzling cars; mind numbing and mind controlling TV programmes; following ‘fashion’; frequent boozing and partying; electro smog producing indulgent cell phone conversations … and so on.
Not only are these various pursuits negatively impacting on us and on our surroundings – but by pursuing them we are financially and energetically supporting those facets of society whose sole aim is profit, power and increasing control over our daily lives. In other words we are supporting that which is part and parcel of the uninterrupted destruction of this ‘world that is our garden’.
This is clearly a thoroughly unspiritual path to tread.
We are either supporting a radical transformation of society in line with our own rising awareness of its multiple destructive components, or we are falling into a hypocritical and delusional state in which any gain in awareness is soon undone and turned in upon itself.
We have no choice other than to walk forward on two feet. To ‘walk the walk’ and to practice what we preach.
It is my belief that we will succeed in this great quest once we have securely tethered our inner awakening to the manifestation of its true outward expression.
Thus the road to enlightenment becomes synonymous with taking actions to ameliorate and heal the social, cultural, economic and environmental scars that cover our wounded planet. A process which unifies otherwise disparate endeavours and reveals disengaged, inward looking and passive spiritual practices – that shun active participation in service of the planet – to be ultimately fraudulent and a mechanism for escapism.
If ‘The World is our garden’ then let us be united now in going to rescue it from its enemies – no matter what the odds. Let us defy the political gamesmanship that has lead governments to ally with the corporate cause and ignore the cries of imprisoned humanity and the tortured limbs of mother nature.
Our highest spiritual calling is to come out in defence of life.* The angels will rush to our side once we have demonstrated our commitment to taking control of our destinies, which includes the emancipation of this long oppressed planet which is our unique and irreplaceable home.
………………………………………
* ‘In Defence of Life – Essays on a Radical Reworking of Green Wisdom’ is the title of Julian’s latest book. Published by Earth Books. See http://www.julianrose.info
2 Apr
Eight yellow crocuses and four tulips (not the ones I planted) just beginning to emerge. The ones I planted are in a bit cooler microclimate due to morning shade, so I hope the squirrels left a few for us to enjoy! I found this one poking through the edge of Mount Mulchmore the other day. Good thing I got back to work.
18 Mar
Here’s a fun, thrifty video for anyone interested in repurposing materials and creating eco-friendly landscaping on the cheap. I’ve had another of those synchronous garden moments in which I put out a call for old concrete slabs to line garden beds like I did in Madison:
Reclaimed concrete edging in our Madison side garden (with newly planted GrowSoxx)
Just as in Madison, our next door neighbors smashed up their old concrete and left huge, unsightly piles by the curb. Thankfully, this time I have a wheelbarrow! It’s still hard work, but our mulched out front yard beds are beginning to take on an organic shape.
Without any plants yet, the beds look quite grim, so I started searching for the best plants to soften rocky edges. I think lavender and nasturtiums will look nice spilling over the edges, and some colorful creeping thyme can line the edge by the driveway. My search produced the inspiring video below. I thought I’d share here for anyone who’d like to have a garden but believes it would be cost prohibitive. If you don’t want to buy plants, you can cheaply grow them from seed. Begin asking around, too. Last year, I hit the mother lode of free plants on freecycle.org, and Sarah mentions craigslist.com as a great source of free plants:
I will probably need to rearrange some of our concrete slabs after tomorrow’s rain shows me what they look like without the dirt. David also doesn’t want tough edging against the grass or sidewalk, which means I need to find some sort of grass repellant, yet pretty border for the lawn areas. I’m sure some solution will present itself. In the meantime, it feels sooooo good to work outside again!
Cheers!
28 Feb
Long term blog readers know I love my organic garden and all the adventures and delicious produce it provides. I generally like to focus on the positive motivations of gardening: fresher produce, grounding with the planet, chance to observe and commune with Nature, greater independence and cost savings. This year, though, the world –particularly the US — faces some potentially major food shortages. All of the greatest food providing regions in our country and many others around the world are experiencing either severe drought, unprecedented snowstorms, or major floods. You can read articles like “How to Beat Coming Killer Food Shortages” and “California Drought Threatens Entire Country. Three Pictures Show How Bad It Really Is” to find very sobering maps, photos and statistics.
I’ve already suggested people on the West Coast build orgone chembusters to break up the geo-engineering chemtrails exacerbating the situation. You can find substantial evidence for weather manipulation if you look for it. Some theorize that “someone” is trying to keep the Fukushima radiation cloud from hitting the West Coast, but even assuming this as a “benevolent” intention, the fact remains that most of America’s food comes from California. After hearing that the Fed’s won’t provide them water (or worse, are trying to allow private companies to claim available water!), farmers have decided to plant far fewer crops or none at all. Fruit and nut orchards face devastating consequences from the worst drought in 500 years. Prices will skyrocket as the longer term effects play out — unless other regions step in to fill the void.
Every crisis presents opportunities to grow and thrive. With the technology and know-how now available for growing in small places and growing indoors in off-grid greenhouses, people looking to fill a definite need would be wise to investigate ways to produce organic foods in their area. Next winter will likely highlight the worst effects from the California and Western droughts, since the rest of the country doesn’t tend to grow food in winter. We have about 9 months to shift that dynamic, and we would be wise to do so. Those reading from other countries would also be wise to explore ways of becoming more self-sufficient, especially with an eye towards fall and winter. California exports a lot of food to other countries. If you value food, you’ll want to find ways of replacing those imports into your own nation.
People without their own land can join community gardens or team up with neighbors who have yards but don’t garden. Offering a share of produce in exchange for the land brings benefits to both parties. People who have a little space can learn from this earlier post about maximizing vertical growing space. The Organic Prepper article I linked to in the beginning also shares great information on intensive gardening. Those who have land but not much sun, can look forward to a future article I’ll post on tips for gardening well in moderate shade. For getting the most out of very small spaces, I suggest tiered raised beds like the InstaBed Cubic Foot Gardening system or The Garden Tower Project.
I used three of the InstaBed’s last year, and the black beds raised soil temperatures enough that we had tomatoes far earlier than anyone else we knew. In retrospect, I would suggest building those in concentric circles rather than the “cascade” setup and also splurging on the extra soil mixture to fill the beds completely, rather than backfilling them with compost. Ours sank a lot! We did, however, have highly, highly productive plants. The InstaBeds work better for backyard gardens, as they look less attractive until your plants cover the black plastic. The Garden Tower Project, by contrast, offers a complete system –vermicomposting, gardening, fertilizing and extra compost creation — and looks especially attractive in the terra cotta version. You could totally display a Garden Tower in your front or side yard! I plan to order one myself just to demo for our town. Maybe some locals will decide to buy them for winter gardening or an off grid greenhouse by next fall.
Those who already do garden and who love to garden: please consider planting extra this year. I’ve composted and mulched our entire front yard as an experiment but also because I anticipated the coming food shortage. I intend to plant edible ornamentals far beyond our own needs, just in case neighbors can’t afford their own food. If we don’t need all that produce, then it will still look pretty, or I can donate to food banks, but in the event we need an urban farm … um … we’ll have it! LOL, but seriously. I’ve layered up so much compost and wood mulch that I hope the front won’t need much, if any watering, especially after all this snow. You can’t put wood mulch right next to veggies, as it will rob nitrogen, but in between plants, the wood mulch stores many times its weight in water, slowly releasing it to the soil as needed. Leaf mulch works great closer to each plant, and the more organic matter you add to your soil, the more water it will hold.
All these tips represent practical, 3D things you can do, and I highly recommend doing any or all of them. Even if you can’t become 100% food self-sufficient, you’ll still save money on produce and eat fresher food. On more metaphysical levels, those in drought areas can pray for rain, make offerings to the water spirits, and/or do rain dances. I’ve shared before just how effective rain dances and working with the Elementals can be! Every time I mention this again, more people tell me their amazing stories of Nature’s response. We can also work with the plant Deva’s, asking them to nurture our gardens and farms. Organic and heirloom plants work best for this, since Nature and Nature Spirits don’t dig on GMO’s! At all.
Companion planting and certain “stinky” flowers will help with unwanted bugs. Marigolds and red geraniums not only look pretty; they also repel unwanted eaters. Various herbs and flowers like lavender, borage and zinnias attract beneficial insects that eat the eaters. By working with Nature, you can let Nature do much of the work for you. Gardening need not take massive amounts of time. Work smart and sacredly, not hard. 🙂
On an even more metaphysical/magical level, you can practice generating “supply” with your mind. This takes instant manifestation up several notches, so that you can actually create something out of the ideal in your mind. Thanks to Ariadne Stardust for the suggestion to read Life and Teachings of the Masters of the Far East by Baird T. Spalding. David owned this set when we first moved in together, and I’ve reached over it every day to answer the phone since we moved to Goshen! Whether or not you believe the adventures occurred exactly as written, the techniques work. I’ve long practiced versions of them just on my own — manifesting things I need within moments to days of visualizing and requesting. Someone either gives them to me, I find them on super-duper sales, or sales clerks remark that they’ve “never seen this item in inventory before. It’s not even in our computer!” Hmmm, well, fancy that. 😉
I don’t tell this to many people and no one believes me when I do, but I will share it here as relevant: I once created seven $10 bills out of thin air. They literally appeared as crisp, new $10 bills inside a previously empty hat. It freaked me out so much I never did it again that way, but I know for an experiential fact that we can supply ourselves with what we need. Emphasis on need, not for party tricks. My late friend Leigh went through a period of extreme poverty before she passed. She would often go to the grocery store with no money in her purse, select everything she needed to purchase, and when she checked out, she’d find exact change in her purse to pay for her goods.
While married, I went through a period in which money flowed out more than it came in, and I remembered Leigh’s experiences. I would select whatever we needed without tallying up the cost. Every time, it always came in just under what I had to spend — even if that took 75% off sales to make it happen. It always did. I also frequently found unexpected $20 bills in pockets or wrapped around credit cards, which I know did not exist until I needed them. I share these details here not to brag, but as testimony that we have many ways of meeting our needs. Whether food or money to buy food, the principle remains the same: tuning into the pure image of what we need and then allowing the Divine Spirit to respond and create through us.
I truly believe all the challenges facing our wold today offer opportunities to return to our Divine connection, spiritual tools and natural abilities. Faery tales — great repositories of truth — describe so many situations in which people with pure hearts receive even the most impossible gifts. People say with scorn, “Oh, that’s just a fairy tale, a myth,” in order to dismiss something as ridiculous. I could not disagree more. Our weakness, disconnection and “need” to struggle are the biggest lies ever told. Faery tales, folklore, ballads, and myths — real ones, not Disney — give us clues and wisdom for a return to more magical lives.
Blessed Be, and be the blessing!
4 Feb
In case you, like me, are dreaming of sunnier, warmer days:
13 Dec
My mom’s mom passed away in the wee hours of Thursday morning in my Aunt Gail’s home, where Gramma Irene spent the past two years living with my cousins and Uncle Bret. I was initially a bit surprised to hear the news, because I usually receive some sort of visitation or warning just prior, during or immediately after someone passes. This happens consistently, even with people I don’t know very well, so yesterday felt a little surreal until later in the evening when I mentioned to my sister that it seemed so weird not to have known.
My sister replied that she had felt her — feeling compelled to tell Gramma Irene stories last Friday. I then realized that I, too, had felt Gramma’s presence this past Tuesday while attending the Christmas concert at Goshen College. I even blogged about the audience exquisitely singing the Hallelujah Chorus. What I didn’t say in my blog, but did mention to David and think about for days was how much that experience reminded me of my maternal grandmother. I was seated next to a dear 82-year-old friend of mine, and her surprising soprano voice belting out the Hallelujah Chorus sounded so much like Gramma Irene that I teared up. All week long, I’ve heard a blend of my friend and my grandmother singing through my head.
In 2009, while renting a home in Sonoma County, CA with my then-husband, now ex-husband, Stephen, I wrote a post with a little tribute to Gramma Irene inside of it, and it seems appropriate to share her part here:
I have always wanted a rose garden. My maternal grandmother lived in Irvine, CA for most of my youth, and she had the most beautiful roses in full bloom on her patio. A long-time soloist, she would sing her arias while pruning away, offering me, her sixteen-year-old granddaughter, mimosas and chocolate for breakfast. In retrospect, Gramma Irene was a pretty cool grandma!
My grandmother has since moved somewhere that maintains the rose gardens for her, but she still has lovely rose pillows and garden paintings in her apartment. When Stephen and I moved to our new home in Sonoma County, one of the first things I noticed was a woman singing arias while she gardened. It totally reminded me of my grandma! As things turned out, we have our own rose bushes, too, many of which needed pruning. I finally went outside today with some pruning sheers — my first ever — and had a go at them. I think I did pretty well, but we’ll see how many new blooms we get. 🙂
While trimming off the old blooms, I remembered some old thoughts I’d had regarding the whole concept of pruning: the idea that in order to grow, sometimes we need to cut back more than we think is necessary. Some of those leaves looked just fine to me, but I needed to prune them back to the first 5-patch if I wanted the bush to continue blooming. During life coaching sessions, sometimes that same principle holds true. Parts of someone’s life may look just fine, but in order to invite the big blossoming, they still need some cutting out and reshaping. I love how nature reminds us of the abundance of life — that we can remove parts that sap energy in preparation for the tremendous blooms in store for us. We need not fear some discipline or change. Giant, fragrant petals are on the way!
While pruning roses, I started thinking about a Garden Paradise, and quickly those thoughts turned to humanity’s attempts to return to that original Garden Paradise — our personal Eden.
…
Fast forward 4.5 years, and I now have my own, quite large, garden, a new home and a completely new love life. I had intended to plant rose bushes this Fall, but I ran out of time. Now I know why. Gramma Irene, I’ll be planting those rose bushes in memory of you.
I’ve lost two grandmothers this year — 101 year old Grandma Van in April and 91-year-old Gramma Irene yesterday. I shouldn’t really say “lost,” since I carry pieces of each of them with me, and I know I can speak with the dead whenever we both want those lines of communication open. My dad brought me little houses from Grandma Van, and they now house the faeries on our front porch. (For real — you could feel the energy shift when I put them on the window sills.) When I see our front porch, I think of Grandma Van, and whenever I see or smell those rose bushes, I will remember Gramma Irene.
Blessings and love to both of you. Thanks for bringing so much magic, beauty and love to my life!
me, Gramma Irene, Grandma Van, my brother Craig and my sister, Erica
Laura Bruno's Blog 