Noticing Three From My Garden, In Two Ways
It’s time to come in for a close look, again, at the living world around me; I’ve been focused on the horizon for long enough. To celebrate, here are three from my garden, seen in two ways.
I’m loving what I’m noticing…
Columbine, view one
Columbine, view two
Spirea, view one
Spirea, view two
Blackberry Blossom, view one
Blackberry Blossom, view two
2010 Garden Planning: Charts (check)
An Excel spreadsheet entitled “2010 garden chart” lives on my computer. It contains rectangular representations of my garden’s nine square-foot gardening beds. As of yesterday morning, almost every square in the chart was empty (thank goodness for the five perennial squares, already filled in from last year, which gave me a sense of at least some progress). This evening, the chart tells quite a different story: Every one of the 100 squares is now full, complete with the name of each plant and the date on which to sow seeds or transplant seedlings. Thrilling! What’s more, I sowed the first round of seeds in starter flats this afternoon (three varieties of tomatoes, sage, and coriander). If I were working alone, placing plants in 100 squares and determining the sowing/planting timing would be overwhelming. Teaming up with Nature, however, makes the entire process easy and fun. I also know that the garden will be in balance with all that is — and that is something I definitely could not guarantee on my own. So, 2010 Garden Chart? Check. Easy? Check. In balance? Check. Ready for helpers? The chart says seed sowing begins in earnest next week. So, check!
A Potter’s Respect for Emerging Form
Image copyright (c) White Forest Pottery
I’ve posted about White Forest Pottery before, and these wall vessels from their Spring collection are worth another mention. Cast from a young coconut pod found at Tulum, the containers vibrate with the energy of new life, of growing, of potentiality. I am filled with excitement as I look at these pieces and feel the potter’s respect for emerging form — it’s so deliciously refreshing.
Accidental Co-Creativity: The Menopause Edition
A friend of mine recently mentioned that she’d gone through an early menopause a couple of years ago, and she shared her experience with hot flashes. At first, she dreaded the flushed, poisoned feeling that washed over her, leaving her sweaty and angry. For months, she found herself engaged in a kind of battle with menopause, meeting each hot flash with deeper resentment and resistance. Then, out of the blue, a sense of gratitude for her body and the natural transition into menopause washed over her. My friend made the conscious decision to honor and work with her menopause. From that point forward, when a hot flash started heating up, she said, “Come on, let’s do this together,” thanking and welcoming the feeling and the process. Not only did she stop fighting menopause, she started working cooperatively with it. The intensity of the hot flashes eased right away, and within a few weeks, they disappeared completely. Gone. Done. Just like that. In essence, she was able to co-create a smoother and more efficient menopausal transition by working co-creatively with her body and with her menopause and hot flashes.
I love stories like this — I call them “accidental co-creativity.” And, each one that I hear leads me to think, “If this is what happens by accident, imagine what’s possible when we are all fully conscious of our co-creative power.” I’m already starting to plan how I’ll meet, greet, and team up with menopause when it comes knocking at my door.
Co-Creating With Fun: Piano Steps
Why do people take the escalator more than steps, when given the choice? I’m beginning to think it’s not just because it’s easier, but also because it’s more fun. Take a look at this video of a project in Sweden that resulted in 66% more people than normal taking the stairs instead of the escalator. I’m positive that somehow, consciously or not, the creators asked the Deva of Fun to get involved in this stair-step transformation. (Note: The video moved me so deeply, I cried. I think I’m needing a visit from the Fun Fairy, myself.)
Two weeks ago, my family and I took a quick trip to Orlando — the first time my children visited Florida. We devoted one day on the short trip to typical tourist behavior, and we ultimately chose to spend that day at Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. (And, believe me, twelve full hours of Disney’s alternate reality was enough — quite fun, but enough!) As part of the touristy-time decision making process, we explored online the multitude of theme parks that Orlando has to offer, including Sea World. We watched teaser video clips of the various water-spectacle shows at the park, and with each shot of a killer whale or dolphin jumping, leaping and splashing I became more and more uneasy. This can’t be right, I thought, putting these animals through such paces over and over again every day. The queasy feeling in my stomach and the ache in my heart center told me to move away from the Sea World website and head back to The Wonderful World of Disney.
It turns out that my stomach and heart were right. Within a week of our Orlando trip, a killer whale pulled one of trainers underwater at the end of a show. She died. The reporters’ talk immediately turned to whether or not the animal would be euthanized after the incident. I wasn’t shocked by the direction of the media’s questioning; I was sad. My inner reporter began asking: “Isn’t it time to evaluate if these kinds of shows are balanced activities for the animals?” The whales, dolphins and sea lions looked overworked to me in just the few minutes of clips that I watched on the Internet — and with each show running four or five times a day, seven days a week, that’s a lot of cumulative stress. In addition, whales and dolphins rely on sound waves (sonar) to move throughout their environs, and penning them in small performance tanks in an arena filled with a cacophony of crowd noise strips them of their ability to function naturally. And I’ve now read that the animals’ food supply is limited in order to increase their incentive to perform for food reward. Cruelty, plain and simple.
I wish the person who first thought of the idea to stage a show featuring killer whales jumping through hoops of fire in exchange for smidgens of chum had stopped and asked: “Is this in balance with Nature? Would staging this show be something the whales would naturally evolve to do? Would I choose to perform in this way, if I were a whale?” Instead, the questions probably went more like this: “How much would people pay to see this? How many people would come each day? How many shows can we stage without getting charged with excessively cruelty to animals?” Having recently decided not to fork over $300 for my four-person family to spend a day at Sea World, it’s clear which questions were asked and are still being asked today. The trainer who died was the third to be killed by that particular whale — a whale clearly under extreme stress but who also clearly brings in a lot of money for the park. (Despite the recent tragedy, visitors are still paying to see the “Believe” and “Shamu Rocks” shows day after day.) I wonder if there is a balanced way for humans and killer whales to stage an entertaining show together, where both species are respected and actually collaborate? Without asking that question, we’ll never know. It’s time to ask.
A Fresher Take on Water
After yesterday’s post on contaminated water, it’s time for a fresher take on the subject. Artist Stefanie Silverman has created an inspiring series of pastel and mixed-media paintings that communicate the power, beauty, and elusiveness of water. These abstract works of art show the ways in which water is many things all at once: light and dark, soft and hard, here and there, inviting and foreboding, serene and severe. I am especially grateful for the artist’s clear respect for and partnership with her subject — the water in this painting (posted with the permission of the artist) seems to be saying, with relief, “Thank you for understanding me.”
"Water Pattern," Stefanie Silverman; pastel on paper (copyright the artist)
Water, (Salty) Water Everywhere
Last week, I heard an interview on my local NPR station with a woman discussing the detrimental effects of salting roads during winter weather conditions — the principal issue being that the salt washed away with melting snow and ice pollutes ground water and bodies of water, ultimately reaching plants and wildlife.
Essentially, when the sodium-chloride road salt combines with water, the electrically-charged chlorine atoms break away and accumulate in astonishingly high levels in water sources (a 1997 Danish study found that chloride levels in winter were 1,200 times higher than in summer). Water treatment plants are not constructed to cleanse this level of chloride contamination, so the water makes its way through the ground and also through sewer systems to sources of both human and non-human consumption. The problem with chloride-filled water is that it essentially cannot quench thirst — especially in plants and small animals. Here’s the quick and dirty biology: The chlorides collect on the outside of a plant’s or animal’s cell membranes, unable to cross into the cell, creating a mineral imbalance; the water inside the cell then leaches out via osmosis to correct this imbalance, thus dehydrating the plant or animal. (This is why humans can’t rehydrate on a hot day at the beach by drinking sea water.)
The NPR-show interviewer posed an interesting question: “So, isn’t this another example of a strategy invented by humans to deal with a natural phenomenon that actually causes a larger problem in the end?” Right on. The upside of road-salting is that far fewer people are dying in auto accidents on icy roads. There are, however, other options to explore — though most are either far more expensive (for example, there are high-tech monitoring systems that detect optimal time and conditions to salt, decreasing salt usage by two-thirds in some cases) or far more inconvenient (for example, don’t drive on icy roads!).
We haven’t used any de-icing salt on our sidewalks or driveways yet this winter, and I’m glad for it. Sure, we’ve had to be more timely, aggressive and creative with our snow-removal techniques (I found that the flat-tipped garden shovel works wonders on the slabs of ice that form under car wheels, even though that shovel is heavy-so-heavy), but that’s an extra bit of workload I’m willing to take on in this situation. Of course, we’re just one house surrounded by neighbors who are a bit salt-happy, and located on a major road that is salt-ecstatic, but — heck — it’s a start.
Snowy Bits of Nature
spirea in the snow
rhododendron in the snow
muzzle in the snow
Here We Go Again!
Today, I officially began the process of planning this year’s soil garden, with the intention that the garden will yield a larger share of our family’s seasonal produce (compared with last year). Before starting, I wondered if I would find this beginning conversation (with the Deva of my garden) overwhelming, but instead I am completely energized.
Right now, I’m only dealing with the raised beds — the other planting areas will wait for another time. Some of the patches in my square-foot-gardening beds are inhabited by perennials (mint, sedum, lamb’s ear, lemon balm), but most will be void of plantings come the Spring. And, while I’m not yet dealing with which new plants will go where, it’s exciting to know the names of the square-dwellers that will be arriving in a few months.
This morning, I placed orders for the following seeds:
- Beans
- Purple King (pole)
- Blue Lake (bush)
- Maxibel (bush)
- Beets
- Touchstone Gold
- Lettuce
- Simpson’s Black-Seeded (leaf)
- Red Deer Tongue (leaf)
- Melon
- Sugar Baby Watermelon
- Mustard Greens
- Savannah Hybrid
- Parsnip
- Hollow Crown
- Peas
- Super Sugar Snap (edible pod)
- RSVPea (shelling)
- Squash
- Small Sugar Pumpkin
- Radish
- Space Hybrid
- Tomato
- Rutgers Heirloom
- Ensalada Hybrid
- Best Boy Hybrid
- Herbs
- Coriander
- Sage
- Lovage
- Sunflower
- Velvet Queen
- Nasturtium
- Fragrant Giants
- Cosmos
- Sonata Mix
- Psyche Mix
- Bright Lights Mix
- Foxglove
- Foxy Mixed
In addition to these from-seed plants, I will seek out seedlings of the following (some of which will be transplanted from other areas of my garden): kale, potatoes, sorrel, basil, chives, echinacea, lavender, lemon balm, lobelia, rosemary, mums, columbine, geraniums, and salvia.
OK, now this list looks REALLY large. Anyone looking for a couple of hours sowing or transplanting come Spring, just holler. I’ll gladly accept all the helpers who wander my way!
