gardening, not blogging

i have built 4 boxes for square foot gardens and filled 3 with soil and planted them. i've got a 4th box made, ready to be filled with soil and planted. it will have the really hot weather stuff--okra, corn, moon and stars watermelon, yellow squash, and a melon called charentais that i saw in the nichols catalog that looks similar to canteloupe and is supposedly delicious.

i check my garden before and after work. i water plants by hand using sun-warmed water (the chlorine has evaporated too, making it even better for my plants). i reuse plastic kitty litter containers and dip the water out with a bowl that holds about 8 ounces--just the right amount for a square foot. the plants seem to be responding quite well.

the recent rains haven't hurt either.

i've harvested about 8 strawberries from 4 plants, with more to come. i have eaten thinnings of green onions, spinach, and chard, and added homegrown dill, parsley, arugula, and a feathery mustard to salads.

this garden is giving me such pleasure! the 4x4' boxes are divided into 1' squares using a grid. i planted accordingly--either 1, 4, 9, or 16 plants/seeds per square, depending on the size of the mature plant. grids give these gardens a visual order. i notice the plants in each grid and am able to compare it in my memory to how it looked last time i viewed it. it helps me stay on top of things, like when the arugula needs to be pinched.

the third box, planted april 12, is really coming along! the natural gardener had no legume inoculant, so i planted both bush and pole beans without it. most of them sprouted anyway. it's easy to see where the holes are when you plant 9 beans per square, and i will probably wait a few more days to see if any late sprouters poke up through the soil before i plant replacements.

newly emerged seeds in that box include mammoth sunflowers, 3 kinds of pole beans (green, yellow, and purple), Romano bush beans, an early sweet corn, 3 colors of zucchini (light green, dark green, and yellow), and New Zealand spinach. i haven't grown that before. i also have Malabar spinach seeds to plant in the fourth box--they climb. i don't think NZ spinach climbs, but i shall find out!

the pole beans are planted so that they can climb up the corn and sunflowers! elsewhere i planted cucumber seeds around a sunflower seed, so they can climb it too. it's all an experiment--trial and error. i'm keeping a notebook so i can keep track of what does well.

other plants i haven't grown before include stevia and ground cherry, a nightshade with sweet fruit. can't wait to taste them! yes, i'm growing something i've never eaten! (well, i've eaten stevia before, but only processed.)

the soil mix is the same in each box: 3 10-gallon bags of Rose Magic from the natural gardener and an equal amount (by volume) of organic peat moss. i mixed "garden pep" (cottonseed meal from the natural gardener) in box 3. no wonder the new beans can grow 2" in a day! i now understand the origins of the jack and the beanstalk story!

i've got 2 kinds of spinach and red lettuce going. i'm going to try shade cloth over them for the first time to see if i can extend them into the hot summer. but if not, i also have spinach beet (a nichols novelty), chard, the NZ and malabar spinaches, amaranth (hin choy), lambsquarters, and sorrel to provide greens through the summer.

i bought transplants of miniature tomatoes and sweet peppers from seed savers exchange and have also planted transplants of eggplant (regular and japanese).

i imagine that at some point, i will have more food than i can eat. i've been hearing about wheatville's new "gro-op" program--don't know the details yet, but it sounds like it may provide a way to share the excesses of my garden and partake of others' bounty. if so, how cool is that?

i also am planning to plant some gourds to grow up trees and fences and provide me some new and interesting containers. dippers, bowls, birdhouses, bottles--many possibilities await.

i plan to have a separate flower garden just outside my back door with several kinds of sunflowers, zinnia, and marigolds, all good cutting flowers for the house, office, and giving away.

i'd still like to find some holy basil to make tea with.

so, that's how i've been spending my time this glorious month of april. gardening, not blogging.

poem: From Blossoms, by Li-Young Lee

From Blossoms

From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the joy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

~ Li-Young Lee ~

(Rose)

poem: To Begin With, the Sweet Grass, by Mary Oliver

she knows! so beautiful, so wise...


To Begin With, the Sweet Grass
(excerpt)

1.

Will the hungry ox stand in the field and not eat
of the sweet grass?
Will the owl bite off its own wings?
Will the lark forget to lift its body in the air or
forget to sing?
Will the rivers run upstream?

Behold, I say - behold
the reliability and the finery and the teachings
of this gritty earth gift.

2.

Eat bread and understand comfort.
Drink water, and understand delight.
Visit the garden where the scarlet trumpets
are opening their bodies for the hummingbirds
who are drinking the sweetness, who are
thrillingly gluttonous.

For one thing leads to another.
Soon you will notice how stones shine underfoot.
Eventually tides will be the only calendar you believe in.

And someone's face, whom you love, will be as a star
both intimate and ultimate,
and you will be both heart-shaken and respectful.
And you will hear the air itself, like a beloved, whisper:
oh, let me, for a while longer, enter the two
beautiful bodies of your lungs.

7.

What I loved in the beginning, I think, was mostly myself.
Never mind that I had to, since somebody had to.
That was many years ago.
Since then I have gone out from my confinements,
though with difficulty.
I mean the ones that thought to rule my heart.
I cast them out, I put them on the mush pile.
They will be nourishment somehow (everything is nourishment
somehow or another).
And I have become the child of the clouds, and of hope.
I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is.
I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned,
I have become younger.

And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know?
Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.

~ Mary Oliver ~


(Evidence)

sorry it's been so long

work is heating up. my first square foot garden is going well. 3 more to fill with soil and plant with summer veggies and herbs. may make a couple more boxes for flowers!

i just finished reading Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing by Jed McKenna.

current book: A Path with Heart, by Jack Kornfield, co-founder of Insight Meditation. Kornfield has more heart than McKenna, but both have valid information on spiritual enlightenment. Kornfield makes the process seem more worthwhile, though; McKenna focuses more on what he defines as the end of the process--nondual awareness. I do wonder what he'd have to say now, how he continued his growth.

both books are worthwhile reading.

sunday after a rainy morning reading in bed, i went out and took photos of art on the east side--paintings both commercial and decorative. will post soon.

lela is in europe, hannah is in branson, MO, kathleen is in orlando, going to cornwall in england tomorrow i believe.

and i'm here in austin.

poem: My Mind Was a Mirror, by Ernest Hyde

this poem reminds me of a process we experience as we grow older. awakening.

My mind was a mirror:
It saw what it saw, it knew what it knew.
In youth my mind was just a mirror
In a rapidly flying car,
Which catches and loses bits of the landscape.
Then in time
Great scratches were made on the mirror,
Letting the outside world come in,
And letting my inner self look out.
For this is the birth of the soul in sorrow,
A birth with gains and losses.
The mind sees the world as a thing apart,
And the soul makes the world at one with itself.
A mirror scratched reflects no image —
And this is the silence of wisdom.

~ Ernest Hyde ~

(Spoon River Anthology)

favorite modalities

referring to the long list of healing/energy/growth modalities listed in the previous post, i thought i'd list those that have made the most difference in my life.

some have become part of my lifestyle: yoga, meditation, acupuncture, journaling, food awareness, and dreamwork.

others have been tremendously helpful given situations peculiar to my life: waking the tiger for PTSD and NUCCA for scoliosis.

two are just fascinating--i have read books and learned a lot, and i would love to plunge into the depths--probably will when the stars are aligned right: Enneagram and LifePrints.

and then there's NLP. i've completed practitioner training and will soon start my master practitioner training. NLP has a huge body of work and is very practical. that makes it worthy of study.

not that there's anything wrong with the modalities i didn't mention here... these are just those i have resonated with the most. i feel grateful for all the experience.

experience

Today I was making a list of the various modalities I have at least some experience with for health, energy, awareness, personal growth, relating, and changework. I was shocked at how long it was!

I have either worked with trained practitioners, received training myself, attended classes/workshops/practice groups, read books or watched videos, or taught these modalities.

I'm going to start with the body-based and energy modalities. I excluded Pilates, snorkeling, kayaking, hiking, etc--practices that are for fitness and recreation only. This list is about healing, increasing awareness, improving energy. These practices can also affect mental/emotional state profoundly, since everything is connected:
massage (Swedish, Shiatsu, Thai)
traditional chiropractic
NUCCA chiropractic
cranio-sacral therapy
rolfing
acupuncture
osteopathy
zero balancing
Feldenkrais--one on one, Awareness Through Movement classes
Alexander Technique
physiosynthesis
yoga--mostly Iyengar, also at least one class in Sivananda, Integral, Anusara, Vinyasa Flow, Kundalini
breathwork
chakra work
Z-health
EFT
hands-on healing
Brain Gym

These are primarily dance-related:
5 rhythms
trance dance
contact improv

These involve food and nutrition and absorption:
candida clearing
diet--food sensitivities, pH, doshas
organ cleansing--colon, liver, gallbladder
fasting

These modalities are more about shifting state and changing patterns:
NLP (waaaayyy too much to list under this umbrella)
hypnosis/trancework
shamanic practices (journeying, Ha prayer, energy cleansing, yana chaqui, pico pico breathing, and more)
12 states of attention
nightwalking/peripheral walking
holographic repatterning
meditation
japalm/mantra
deeksha

These are therapeutic types of experiences:
therapy for PTSD/Waking the Tiger
re-evaluation counseling/co-counseling

These are systems for understanding types of people:
Enneagram
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
Life Prints fingerprint analysis

And these are miscellaneous:
InterPlay
Tarot
astrology
journaling
dreamwork
hanging upside down
using a spine aligner
toning

There are probably more that I can't think of now.

I have spent a great deal of time and money obtaining most of these experiences. They have all been of benefit and a joy to experience. Some have become life practices. Some have been specific for a given situation. Some are occasional treats.

I'd like to put this life experience to good use. If you have a question about any of these or want a referral in Austin (a few in Dallas), please feel free to contact me.

poem: For the Unknown Self, by John O'Donohue

I am loving John O'Donohue's poems more with each one I come across. Could he be writing about the third chakra here?


For the Unknown Self

So much of what delights and troubles you
Happens on a surface
You take for ground.
Your mind thinks your life alone,
Your eyes consider air your nearest neighbor,
Yet it seems that a little below your heart
There houses in you an unknown self
Who prefers the patterns of the dark
And is not persuaded by the eye's affection
Or caught by the flash of thought.

It is a self that enjoys contemplative patience
With all your unfolding expression,
Is never drawn to break into light
Though you entangle yourself in unworthiness
And misjudge what you do and who you are.

It presides within like an evening freedom
That will often see you enchanted by twilight
Without ever recognizing the falling night,
It resembles the under-earth of your visible life:
All you do and say and think is fostered
Deep in its opaque and prevenient clay.

It dwells in a strange, yet rhythmic ease
That is not ruffled by disappointment;
It presides in a deeper current of time
Free from the force of cause and sequence
That otherwise shapes your life.

Were it to break forth into day,
Its dark light might quench your mind,
For it knows how your primeval heart
Sisters every cell of your life
To all your known mind would avoid,

Thus it knows to dwell in you gently,
Offering you only discrete glimpses
Of how you construct your life.

At times, it will lead you strangely,
Magnetized by some resonance
That ambushes your vigilance.

It works most resolutely at night
As the poet who draws your dreams,
Creating for you many secret doors,
Decorated with pictures of your hunger;

It has the dignity of the angelic
That knows you to your roots,
Always awaiting your deeper befriending
To take you beyond the threshold of want,
Where all your diverse strainings
Can come to wholesome ease.

~ John O'Donohue ~


(To Bless the Space Between Us)

third visit for NUCCA--adjustment is holding!

Today I had my third visit to Back N Balance, to see how my body is responding to having my atlas adjusted.

Last week (week 2) my atlas needed readjusting.

This week I stayed adjusted! That's thrilling to me.

Dr. Lorenzen watched as I stood on the two-leg scale and my weight would shift slightly from side to side, just from standing straight. Then she used the activator to give gentle taps to my knees, hip joints, sacrum, and some vertebrae.

I am noticing when walking, how dominance can shift from one leg to the other. After my first NUCCA adjustment, I noticed that my left leg was dominant when walking, a major change.

Now I'm noticed dominance can shift, seemingly on its own. After walking, say, 50 steps, dominance switches from left to right. Then it may shift back to the left.

And sometimes...I feel exactly even, like neither leg is dominant.

Maybe that's how normal people feel??? I don't know what normal is.

I am also recognizing with deep gratitude how much my work with Patrice has helped prepare me for this. Hanging upside down gave me the experience of being pulled by gravity the other way and giving me mental flexibility. It also helped stretch tight muscles.

The Z-health foot stretches she taught me have also been phenomenal in giving me strong, flexible feet and ankles. Patrice's acupuncture and her coaching on yoga, nutrition, and organ cleansing have all helped get me much healthier. Her recommendation (and my practice) of meditation has helped me be more aware of energy flows and openings in my own body.

If after two weeks, my body is holding a newly realigned atlas that had been off center for at least 45 years, I must give thanks for Patrice and the work we have done together.

poem: The Night House, by Billy Collins

The Night House

Every day the body works in the fields of the world
mending a stone wall
or swinging a sickle through the tall grass --
the grass of civics, the grass of money --
and every night the body curls around itself
and listens for the soft bells of sleep.

But the heart is restless and rises
from the body in the middle of the night,
and leaves the trapezoidal bedroom
with its thick, pictureless walls
to sit by herself at the kitchen table
and heat some milk in a pan.

And the mind gets up too, puts on a robe
and goes downstairs, lights a cigarette,
and opens a book on engineering.
Even the conscience awakens
and roams from room to room in the dark,
darting away from every mirror like a strange fish.

And the soul is up on the roof
in her nightdress, straddling the ridge,
singing a song about the wildness of the sea
until the first rip of pink appears in the sky.
Then, they all will return to the sleeping body
the way a flock of birds settles back into a tree,

resuming their daily colloquy,
talking to each other or themselves
even through the heat of the long afternoons.
Which is why the body -- that house of voices --
sometimes puts down its metal tongs, its needle, or its pen
to stare into the distance,

to listen to all its names being called
before bending again to its labor.

~ Billy Collins ~

(Sailing Around the Room)