The Last Rose of Summer

Not summer anymore.

Surely I jest! Any respectable gardener can tell that this is NOT a rose. You are absolutely right. In truth it is merely a charming bit of garden art from welded metal kitchen utensils--a ladle for the flower center and serving spoons for the petals. A three and a half foot re-bar "stem" plants it into the ground.

That's a four-foot fence around the back yard, so you have a clear perspective of the sort of late summer day we are experiencing here in Bend.

Goodbye, dear flower! Today a slight bump in the snow suggests that my "rose" has been overtaken by the ill affects of summer long gone.

ZEN Things I get to . . .

Mint, Sage, Pine, Juniper, Spruce Cones

The little scrap of paper fell at my feet. I had placed a collection of greenery donated by the chill November outdoors when I picked up and read for the first time a list of Zen Things.

It felt like the soothing calm of a loving mother who stills a frantic child. I'm thankful to be able to share the list with you.

1 DO ONE THING AT A TIME

2 DO IT SLOWLY AND DELIBERATELY

3 DO IT COMPLETELY

4 DO LESS

5 PUT SPACE BETWEEN THINGS

6 DEVELOP RITUALS

7 DESIGNATE TIME FOR CERTAIN THINGS

8 DEVOTE TIME TO SITTING

9 SMILE AND SERVE OTHERS

10 MAKE CLEANING AND COOKING BECOME A MEDITATION

11 THINK ABOUT WHAT IS NECESSARY

12 LIVE SIMPLY

After the Candle

My candles are lit. Their healing light soothes the raw edges. A loving breath encourages us to move forward now with purposeful action that will hold the center of good.

For all of us there is tremendous strength in using our intention to heal our country and humanity on a larger scale. Our thoughts and prayers are freely our own and need not be constrained by whoever has been elected to lead this nation.

Consider using this powerful prayer to anchor Light and Love in your home, your neighborhood, your city, your state and all across the country. Remember that whatever you extend to others will come back to you many times and multiplied. As you bless others, may you be blessed.

The Great Invocation

From the point of Light within the Mind of God

Let Light stream forth into the minds of all people.

Let Light descend on Earth.

From the point of Love within the Heart of God

Let Love stream forth into the minds of all people.

May the Chosen One return to Earth.

From the Center where the will of God is known,

Let purpose guide the little wills of all people,

The purpose which the Masters know and serve.

From the Center which we call the Human Race,

Let the Plan of Love and Light work out

And may it seal the door where Evil dwells.

Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on Earth.

                                   Djwhal Khul/Alice Bailey

Time to Light Candles

It's dark these days. Daylight Saving skipped away last week to wherever it lives during the winter. Usually sunny Bend has had more than the normal grey days. The temperatures are promised to drop a bit this week. And many of the events of our nation have a foreboding energy around them that could be described as dark.

We offer as a warming antidote the first stanza from "The Great Invocation" (Djwhal Khul/Alice Bailey)

From the point of Light within the Mind of God

Let Light stream forth into the minds of all people.

Let Light descend on Earth!

Then let us all light candles to tell our physical eyes that there is glowing, warm hope available to us always, to show us that there is always something we can do as we stand in Divine Love, to soothe us when we might forget the power and eternal strength of Good.

I light this candle for you!

Unlikely Litter

I pick up litter. The trash varies in its makeup: plenty of cigarette butts, occasional clothing or boots, beer cans and bottles, plastic bags and cups from the fast-food restaurant and the grocery store nearby. It all goes into the yellow bag. The bags are hauled away by the city. Repeat every couple of weeks. Makes me feel better about my space on the Earth.

Really nothing to catch my attention on the road today when I headed out for a walk. On the return it seemed important to tidy up the occasional bit of debris--bare-handed, no gloves, no trash grabber, no big yellow bag. The last scrap of paper stopped me gloriously alert in my tracks. Tell me what you make of it!

The act of smiling opens the heart chakras making us more available to the outpouring of good from the Universe.
It also makes us more sensitive to the energies around us.
May your heart, your mind and your face smile today with Divine Guidance and Illumination.
So Be It!

This Is NOT the End!

Today is the beginning of a new level of creativity. Muscles are not developed on the couch. Learning to hold a heart of peace is not best fostered in an atmosphere of prosperity and good will.

We have before us one of the Grandest Laboratories of Peace and Harmony and Well Being that our country has even known. Let us each move forward to the edge of the light we have, perfecting the balance of loving kindness and mercy, with a willingness to explore our hearts and create elegant altars of Harmony in the spaces we that find.

We are blessed with energies of contrast that cause us to ask and will require a brilliance of creative thought we have not yet used in this evolution of our being. May we be brave with Divine Guidance and Help. May we move forward with Divine Protection and Illumination. May our Divine Creativity soar to heights not seen before. So Be It. So Be It. So Be It.

(Please share your comments of how this plays out in your space of love. We are enriched by our connected and collective experiences.)

Harmony of the trees for our blessing

TODAY I ELECT. . .

-To look for all the best that this day has to offer.
-To speak with compassion and peace on all subjects.
-To regard each, without exception, as her/his Highest and Best Self.
-To bask in the vibrational contentedness of Love.
-To accept the Divine Guidance surrounding us.
-To move forward with the confidence of Divine Help and Protection.
-To stand in the blissful, warm, caressing sunshine of this day.
-To once again hang my clean, wet sheets outside on the line to absorb the radiance of the sun.
-To sleep tonight wrapped in the elegance of the Universe and its Wisdom.

May each of you feel my sharing of these blessings, today and always.  So Be It.

Shimmering in the exquisite rays of Divine Love

You Can Make the Difference!

One person connected to Divine Source Energy is more powerful in thought than millions who are not--a comforting and empowering awareness when many are feeling despair and hopelessness.

So what does this one aware person do?  Bless all those who are feeling unrest, hate, anger, injustice, doubt, despair, depression, pain, and sadness.

The Meditation on Twin Hearts (from St. Francis of Assisi and expanded by Master Choa Kok Sui) is a magnificent way to channel healing energy to the down-trodden and unfortunate. Below is an abridged version for your use. Read this aloud everyday to play a part in the healing of all people and the healing of unrest in this country or any country.

Thank you for being an exquisite instrument of peace and well being.  As you bless, may you also be blessed a thousand fold.  So Be It. So Be It. So Be It.

Meditation on Twin Hearts

-Invoke for Divine Blessings

            To the Supreme God, Thank you for your Divine Blessings. For guidance, help, protection and illumination. With thanks and in full faith.

            To my spiritual teachers, the holy angels, spiritual helpers and all the Great  Ones, Thank you for your divine blessings. For guidance, help, protection and illumination.  With Thanks and in full faith.

-Activate the Heart Chakra and raise your hands in blessing position.

            To the Supreme God, Make me an instrument of your peace. Feel the peace. Bless the earth

Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Feel divine love. Allow yourself to be a channel of divine love and bless the earth with love.

            Where there is injury, pardon. Feel the spirit of reconciliation and bless the earth with understanding, harmony and peace.

            Where there is despair, hope; doubt, faith. Feel the hope and faith and bless the earth and all people with hope and faith.

            Where there is darkness, light; sadness, joy. Allow yourself to be a channel of divine light and joy. Bless the earth and all people with light and joy.

-Activate the crown chakra

            From the center of the heart of God, Let the entire earth be blessed with loving-kindness. Feel it and allow yourself to be a channel of divine love/kindness. share these with the whole earth.

            Let the entire earth be blessed with great joy and happiness. Feel it and share. Visualize people with heavy, difficult problems smiling, their hearts filled with happiness.

            From the center of the heart of God, Let the entire earth be blessed with understanding, harmony and divine peace. Allow yourself to be a channel. Visualize putting down weapons and shaking hands and embracing each other.

            Let the entire earth be blessed with goodwill and the will to do good. Imagine people not only filled with good intentions, but actually carrying out these good intentions.

-Blessings with the Heart and the Crown chakras

            From the center of the heart of God, let the entire earth, every person and being be blessed with divine love and kindness. Feel and share with every person, every being on the whole earth

            Let the entire earth, every person, and every being be blessed with divine sweetness, Divine joy, with warmness, caringness and tenderness. Feel it and share with the whole earth.

            From the center of the heart of God, let the entire earth, every person and every being be blessed with inner healing, inner beauty, divine bliss and divine oneness. Feel it and share it.

-Imagine a brilliant white light or golden light on the crown. Gently and silently chant OM. Meditate on the light and the OM. Continue about 10 minutes. Relax and let go.

-Releasing excess Energy

            Bless the earth with light, loving-kindness, peace and prosperity. Bless countries, people, projects.  Bless Mother Earth: Let Mother Earth be blessed with divine light, love and power. Let Mother Earth be revitalized healed and regenerated. Blessings be to Mother Earth. I am connect and rooted to Mother Earth.

-Give thanks.

Two, Four, Six, Eight

WE certainly do appreciate!

It's finch season at the feeders. Just off my front porch, they come in drifts. Two buffets in a nearby tree are also all a twitter.

Keeping that column full to the top means more food ports are available. To the right, you can see that the top ports are empty already. Topping off the feast is a daily "get to" that tickles me.

What a gift to appreciate these lively flecks of gold!

Not Soon Enough

A resonating read recommended by a traveling friend.
Alice Steinbach: 1933 - 2012

What is that feeling? Discovering for the first time, but only yesterday, a life-long friend who speaks in words only your soul knows. Her stories of travel opening up a part of ones being that has, all this time, begged for air.

Alice has been my best friend forever, though I met her just last week.

Eager to learn more of her life in the period after this book was written, Things I Get to Do Today found instead that she had slipped away before I knew of her at all, before there was a place in my consciousness to stash the deliciousness of her narrative.

Ever elegant and wise, she left behind several books to soothe me. Now that's a good friend!

To Light the Day

Night Light

Besides oozing with damp charm, this little structure provides a welcome and necessary beacon as dark falls. The pathway is steep in several places and takes turns one does not expect.

If your eyes and focus are sharp, you'll see
it tucked in on the right on the floor.

A few days at the Oregon Coast just north of Lincoln City can be a revival for dry skin and dry bones. We soak up the moist pleasure of the sights and smells. These cute "houses" are profoundly good at lighting up the night. We notice them with fond appreciation.

Polyphemus Moth--a Silk Moth found in Oregon from mid-July to August!
Wing span can be 4-6 inches. This one was probably 4".

A closer inspection one morning sent shivers of awe through the group. A Silk Moth--we had definitely found something to light up our day!

Drain Mice*

*WARNING* This blog post very nearly, but not quite, contained graphic photos unsuitable for strong-stomached reading audiences!!

AFTER

Drain Rats are what you tug up out of the shower drain when you finally buckle down to give it a good clean. Be prepared for an ugly, stomach-turning blob of goo that has collected over the last three years or however long you've neglected the job.


Drain Mice are the smaller species of similarly disgusting material, maybe four years in collecting, that have amassed in the drain of your bathroom sink.

My sister and I made a pact to clean our houses separate bathroom sinks a few days ago. She got her's done right away. I left mine to one of the Things I Get to Do Today. With the help of wrenches, boiling water, baking soda, vinegar, rags, brushes, picks and rubber gloves (Oh, please do NOT forget the gloves!) the slimy mouse is gone. The sink drain is clean. The water slips down and out with ease. I conquered the monster. You can, too! I'm sipping ginger ale--my stomach will be recovered by the time you read this

"A Rose is a . . .

Old-fashioned, super thorny, Harrison Rose

Rose is a rose." The quote intimates that things are as they are. And right now things are peaceful. Things are at rest.

This spunky, old-fashioned, yellow rose has helped bring together this sweet peace. My daughter is the keeper of this bush--three years now. Before that its parent bush grew at my mother's house. She hacked it out, but a start of it moved to Oregon to her granddaughter's place. My mother got her start from her most beloved older sister's plant. And that bush was a part of the rambling, thorny, mounded growth that filled a corner outside my grandmother's house just across the road. It is, indeed, a wandering lineage, just like the rose itself.

Monday this spicy, fragrant rose held the presence of Mother's mother and Mother's adored older sister as we laid it on the headstone, bathed in serenity and freshly situated between her parents markers.

June 17, 1921 -  June 8, 2015
Mother rests between her parents, a sprig of yellow holding her eternal love for her mother and sister.

Touching God

I'm not a normal gardener. A tingling warmth radiated through my whole body. As the seeds were separated and anchored to the moist soil with a toothpick, the sensations increased. Touching the seeds and all of their glorious potential was like touching God.

The seeds were from 2013, salvaged from the summer before we sold our house in Portland and moved to Bend. Tomatoes had been cut. A few of their juicy seeds had been spread on a swatch of paper towel and left to dry. The tomato names were marked on the corner. These precious seeds of my most favorite tomatoes were now in my hand. A dozen or so seeds were torn off the scrap of towel (saving a few) and the extra layer of paper was removed. With the towel folded seeds-inward, they would be protected for the next step: nine minutes under my tongue. The seeds hydrated with my saliva. They are gathering my DNA information. Nine minutes is enough time to remember the beauty and bounty of their last harvest, the zinging flavor, the vibrant color, the magnificent blessing of the Divine in tomato form. And I prayed. After the allotted time, I stood outside, seeds now in my hands and held up to the sky to receive their time/date stamp. Two more notes for the seeds as they launch into their life: my breath and being cupped in the energy of my hands. These seeds now know more about me than I do about myself, and they are ready to be planted and to grow to be of superb service to my body. (Will not water the seeds for three days, giving them time to completely absorb my information.)

Waiting now for the seeds to stretch out their knowing into leaves and roots.

It has been several long years since I've partnered with the Divine in planting my tomatoes. When I was finished, I could barely speak, having felt the hand of God moving through me and blessing the harvest to come.

This is an experiment recommended for you to try at home! May you be blessed!

(The above planting ideas came from Ringing Cedars of Russia  by Vladamir Megre'.)

*Wolfpup*

Wolves are multiplying.  They've been taken off the endangered species list here in Oregon.  And it's partly my fault.  I added one just this week.  Planning on adding one more soon.  Watch out!

It's knitting season.  I've been bit bad. When I saw this pattern last January, my knitting skills were basic. Knit. Purl. But I bought the pattern and began to teach myself cables.  Even attempted some simple lace patterns.

Then my sister said she wanted a warm hat for her birthday, and the project launched, full-speed. When the baby alpaca yarn arrived in the mail, there was less than a week till birthday day.  No worries.  Wolfpup gestation period is relatively short.  Out it popped and into the mail.

Haven't had so much fun and such happily knitting fingers in a long time.

*"Wolfpup"  a tiny owl knits pattern by Stephan Dosen
available at tinyowlknits.com 

Time to Put the Down Down

Raw "garden down"

It's blanket season. Down comforter time. Raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, honey berries, they all like their blankies.

Down converter.  Roar over the leaves with the mower for a
good chopping and bagging--all the easier to place and stay
in place.

Their idea of down is different from ours--a little leaf'l do. Actually thousands of little leaves will make for cozy winter nights and even temp days.


Two large maple trees create a mountain of leaves and desperation, out of which helpful ideas are born.

Strawberries in the middle, raspberries and currants on the right.  All tucked in.

Saving a "Crystal Palace Gem"

Shining star of the back yard

She is a Gem, indeed. Not sure where the Crystal Palace comes in, but when the landscape is rather bare, the colors of it often in shades of tan or brown and there aren't many flowers around, a plant like this saves the garden.

She loved her location this summer after spending the winter in the house as a slip, then a small plant, then a very gangly plant.

Not all of these slips will make it, but we are hoping
for a dozen or more.

Now with frost on its way for certain, this garden star must be saved and perhaps even multiplied for next summer.

Plants were dug, pruned back and potted.  They will winter over in the garage.  The mountain of prunings went into a long, flat tub with damp, loose composty earth.

Next summer she will again shine across the whole garden stage, clumped in vivid chartreuse and shocking red-orange.

Tomatoes on the Water

Not from my Bend garden, but a gift!

Scripture says cast your bread.  I know what it means. But all these many years when my garden was plump with a variety of ripe tomatoes, I've been giving them away to friends--casting them on the water, so to speak.  Tomato plants went as well.

Loading up

So when asked the other day about where all the bounty of tomatoes came from, I had to say it was a long story.  The shortest version is that a friend had too many and was willing and able to drive three hours to Bend where I live.  The fact that she was coming anyway does not discount the gift.  It merely reinforces the perfection of the timing.

The first seven out of the hot-water bath.

To have nearly 80 pounds of lovely tomatoes delivered to your tomatoless household is bliss beyond words.  

Forget the bread.  Just give whatever it is you'd like to received. It will come back to you when you are in want of it.

Sun in a Basket

Several dozen little heads and a few big ones, too.  These are going back to
the birds (and the squirrels, chipmunks, deer, ground squirrels and mice).

How much sun, sunshine, sunlight, does it take to make a sunflower? How many hours of powerful energy were absorbed in these many seed heads. From their tiny beginnings as seeds from heads like these, the sprouts became plants and grew from April to September. You do the arithmetic. I'll just stand in awe of the Divine Knowing that manifests here. As sunflowers. As sunshine in a basket.

We Won (We Think)

Sometimes you get the tree.  Sometimes the tree gets you.  So the hard-fought-for win may still have its challenges.

About 1/3 of the pie finished

When we sold our Portland house, we left behind a monster hidden in the yard.  The buyers had no clue about the horsetail (equisetum)--at least not for a month or so.  Bend yards do not have horsetail.  I knew we were safe.  But our sellers left behind a monster hidden in the front yard under the chokecherry tree--surface roots with suckers.  They began to pop up shortly after we moved in, but because of the attention to settling, the chokecherry suckers went untended.

By spring the density of the suckers had reached critical mass.  My trusted hand hoe was the weapon of choice. It bounced off the earth like a toy.  Hidden by less than an inch of soil, massive roots were the foundation for the suckers. Now the real combat began.

The easy part!  The hard part was so hard the luxury of photos
was not part of the pie.

Divide and conquer I've heard.  The pie-shaped ground under the tree went into quarters. One quarter a day was a reasonable goal. But the wooden spaghetti did not give in easily. One quarter pie a day was exhausting. On the fourth day, I cried "uncle" and asking hubby for help. Some roots were as big as my wrist. We (hubby) chopped, sawed, and clipped all the visible roots down at least six inches into the soil.  The removed roots filled two yard debris dumpsters.

Space for the birds to eat.  Wondered why there were no
ground feeders last year.

This summer a mere handful of suckers sprouted in the pie. Our fears that we might be killing the tree were unfounded. The chokecherry produced white flowers in the spring, but far fewer "cherries," and therefore less mess on the sidewalk. The leaves came on green and then fudged into chocolate by mid summer. The final score as of Fall seems to indicate a truce. We're counting that as a win.

Moral to this story:  The easy way (snip and cover with bark mulch) is the hard way.  The hard way (remove the underlying problem) is the easy way. The second truth of the story:  Karma happens.  There's bind weed outside our back fence marching into our yard!