Let us cultivate our own internal Flower Garden.

April 3, 2025

This brought tears to my eyes.

Silly me, I know. Why flowers? For heaven’s sake, you can’t eat them, and what we need is food, food!

This latter opinion, I used to hold. Only pragmatic values held true for me. What changed? Well, I’d say that the submerged feminine side of me needed to come forth and shine equal to the masculine side of me. The right brain, which is linked to the heart and reaches into infinity, receiving bursts of intuition from that mysterious realm, had to find its value within myself.

Trained as a “philosopher,” but in rebellion during the latter stages of my doctoral studies, my feminine side did surface, briefly, to compose a dissertation that flew in from elsewhere.

And yet, 50 years later, when I started to take permaculture seriously, and began to envision growing food here in our tiny Green Acres Village, I asked my permaculture teacher, “Why flowers? We don’t eat them. What good are they?”

What good are they? I ask myself now. Well, for one astonishing thing, each one comes in its own very specifi form, which is usually a mandala of some sort, the contemplation of which helps us center ourselves within our own bodies, and breathe in concert with both the earth.

Notice this rose, or example. Really pay attention to it, from its center, spreading out.

 

What good are they? Well, each one offers color, often brilliant color, like the above salmon rose, much like song birds do. We live in a world of color.

And yet, walking through the gorgeous IU campus this morning with puppy Scampi, more than 9 out of 10 students that passed us either were on their screens, or listening with earbuds to what is not the surging spring of nature that surrounds us all in early April. Listening to something second hand.

Luckily, I’m aware of what I’m missing. And thus when walking, I never use technology, instead immersing myself in the mysterious surround. Yes. Aware that though I’m in a female body, the female side of the brain came in undeveloped, and still needs to be continuously cultivated.

Okay, switch now to not just cultivation of the forgotten pole in any polarity (and that’ what 3D is for, folks, to help us learn how to continuously and dynamically balance the two poles of any polarity, including the conscious and unconscious aspects of our own inner lives, the balance between our mysterious inner world and the equally mysterious (if only we realized it) “outer world” which streams into us via the “five outer senses.”

And, when we actually work to remain “present” in our lives, for example, when I take my daily three to four mile walks with puppy Scampi, my challenge is, to remain present, in all ways. Inside my body, appreciating its rhythmic stride, it’s expert coordination; and outside! the vast outside which, especially in spring, like now, is simply bursting with new life. And I listen, to cultivate sound, the song birds letting me in on it, their excited chatter thrilling through the air. And I cultivate sight, the trees and bushes sprouting leaves — from nowhere! — surging into form.

Everywhere, new life!

Usually, however, except on my daily walks, if you’re like me, you’re caught up in the bullshit that streams in over the internet, trying to discern this from that, following through with this train of reasoning or that; and usually, what is being presented is fear-based, leading to “doom” one way or another.

I can choose to concentrate solely on this kind of (left brain) comprehension of the world, or I can stop, tune in, listen.

I can re-immerse my embodied self with the deeply intertwined, organic, natural order, with every living being, from bacteria to insects to rodents, to mammals on up to stars and planets, each giving of its whole being, according to its own specific laws, in concert with others doing the same. A vast co-creative symphony.

Just think of the intricate ecosystem that powers your own body! 

 

Now back to the photo above. Why did it bring tears to my eyes? Why did it suddenly thrust me into my right brain/heart?

Because the flower garden represents new life emerging from the detritis of the old.

Because this flower garden is a gift from one culture to another, in acknowledgement of our empathic communion with others’ suffering.

Because deciding upon a flower garden is a very creative act! And creativity, folks, is what we humans have, in abundance, though usually latent, covered up by “education,” indoctrination, not to mention the screaming headlines all spelling doom! Fuck that!

Cultivate awareness. Cultivate the “useless” flower garden inside your own right brain/heart connection! For once we go there, nothing is impossible.

Want to know the secret of “going there”? It’s very simple. GRATITUDE. Gratitude for one’s conscious awareness; gratitude for one’s own strong body; gratitude for friends, birds, flowers, on and on — the extraordinary reach of creation.

 

Sudden (Yurt) Emergency: working together; ’twas both fun and necessary!

April 2, 2025

In this first-ever-since-the-U.S.-Civil-War Neptune in Aries season, Have you noticed? It’s crucial to remain centered, no matter what? Who knows what will rush down the pike next! I have the continuous sensation of batting out brush fires, one after another. Oops, there’s another one! Turn around, oops! Quick! Another one. I heard someone say it’s like we’re trying to run on a rolling log, which is itself cascading down a river.

In any case, here’s what happened today, a day when the wind has been picking up, presaging yet another gigantic weird storm that is likely carrying tornados.

Here’s today’s scary map.

However, I must tell you, it’s been years since I did NOT see The Weather Channel (weather.com) as one more  deep state instrument, here to instill FEAR. Even so, in any case, it does seem that the storm business in spring 2025 is off the charts.

So, likely tonight will be the third time in the past month when the dreaded tornado siren will go off in Bloomington IN, or I should say go on, and stay there, at the same fear-mongering pitch, for at least several minutes. Each time it does this, depending one one’s attitude toward the twisting train that might just roar towards us right now, some of us (seven altogether in three houses), head down to the basement of this house to ride out the siren. During March 2025, some of us found ourselves sitting down there twice (Never in 20 years in Bloomington, did I need to wait out a tornado watch twice in the same month in the basement.)

On the other hand, I very much appreciate that, since this IS tornado country, that we do have tornado sirens which, BTW, are tested at noon, the first Friday of every month.

And when I moved here with my (now deceased) husband Jeff, I told him we were not going to buy a house unless it had a basement.

 

Okay, on to what I wanted to talk about, and this is the sudden decision to take down the backyard yurt, ASAP. The wind had picked up; we knew more, much more was on its way. Each time after one of this year’s March winds, Joseph and were out there, putting up rafters that fell, repositioning the walls of the yurt so they don’t bulge where they shouldn’t; making sure the top was secured, further securing all the ropes, etc. And, little by little, we knew that the yurt was getting off-balance altogether, and we were just waiting for a nice day in April to pull it down, wash off all the walls, get the creeping mold off the ceiling, and so on, and then dry it, before putting the yurt up again.

We didn’t take it down at all last year; it’s such a bother! — we thought, and there’s more pressing business. Joseph did take off the top cover, and wash and demoldify it. But the entire yurt? It’s been up for two years now; after having sat, unopened, in its large boxes, piled on my covered front porch for an entire year before that! — until we dared to tackle the job of putting it up!

So, today: A sudden whipping wind gust had just passed through. I saw it through the window, how it had whipped the walls out from their rafters again. Started out to go get Joseph, in the next house. He came out just as I opened my door. We both looked at the yurt. I said, suddenly: “I think we should take down the yurt NOW.” He had been on his way downtown. I had just served myself lunch. But this took precedence. Then we ran into Emerson, who had just taken her special coffee out to the greenhouse. Asked her, want to help? YES.

The three of us ended up taking only 40 minutes to take the entire yurt down and store it, for now, in the basement. Total coordination of what none of us had ever done before. It was both fun and necessary. Pivoting in place to face yet another unforseen situation, running on the log rolling down the river.

Emerson had to reheat her coffee. I ate my lunch cold. Not sure what Joseph did afterwards.

Since we had planned to take the yurt down to wash it off and refresh it this month anyway, it turns out we got a head start!

Plus, having decided to leave the (all weather) mandala rug in place, we’re now thinking up which local musicians we will invite to come give us a concert on the backyard stage!