Nel giardino

Today was the fourth session of yard cleanup in seven days. The weekly garbage collection was yesterday, one day late because of a holiday, and the bin was full of yard detritus (three large bags of it) and some house trash.  A fourth bag had to wait.

Well, that bag was joined by two others today and the bin is already almost full.

The Lady Banks rose is vigorous, to say the least.  I am cutting it back severely, confident that it will cover that section of the wall once again come summer.

The sage is also vigorous.  If you ever want cooking sage, ask me during late spring, summer, or early fall and you can have lots.

In spring 2007 I planted two 3-inch pots of sage in this spot.  A couple of years ago I dug up a chunk for my friend Kathy.  The remaining plant is cut back to the ground every winter and returns as a large clump about 3 feet by 2 feet in size.

The plum tree was pruned a few days ago.  It gets thinned every year but is also quite vigorous.

I do not have comparison photos of the rest of the yard but it gladdens my soul to see it looking tidier as we head deeper into winter.  I still have work to do on two honeysuckles and several rose bushes.

And that is today's gardening report from Desert Farne. The temperature a short while ago was 39 degrees F.  That is the predicted HIGH for tomorrow with bright sunshine.  I might not feel like yard work.  We shall see.

Perhaps I should stay indoors and read, watch movies, and do some of the emotional pruning my therapist recommended for this week.  Getting down to the essential takes effort.

--the BB

The sixth day of Christmas

I took a walk at lunch time today and here are some pics therefrom.  If you click on the photos you will see more detail.

As I have said so many times on Facebook, "I love living here!"

--the BB

Saturday walk

Horse Skull

"Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return."  Ominous?  Not necessarily.  As I was taking my walk on Saturday a friend shared this with me.  We are made of stardust, after all.  Awesome.

I find time in nature restorative, as most of us do.  This is enhanced by my being a nature mystic and more or less an animist.  I see every subatomic particle as infused with the Spirit and Life of God.

So, on another glorious day in Albuquerque I drove a few miles from my house, parked the car, and started walking.  The photo above is a view across the fields of the West Mesa toward the Sandias.

After I had moseyed about two and a half miles down the road, this is the view back toward the car which is hiding just below the horizon.

I loved the back lighting on these grasses lining the road.

Emeralds are my birthstone.  The broken glass here was lovely.

A tree near a culvert.

The view toward the west and the vast expanse of the West Mesa and the New Mexico sky.

As I walked along, enjoying the sunlight glistening on pieces of broken glass in varying shades, my mind assembled them as a long stretch of stained glass.  And I thought of the imagery of the Shekinah scattered throughout creation, longing to be reunited.  My mind then turned back to cosmology.  We have so many mythoi of creation being healed and brought back together.  Yet scientists tell us the universe is expanding ever faster and will eventually become dark and undifferentiated.  I have no reason to doubt that.

If one has lived a comfortable life, as most throughout history have not, that may be enough: to have simply lived.  But if one's life has known misery, starvation, slavery, oppression, war, disease, terror, violence, abuse, chronic pain, etc. then merely having lived hardly seems enough.  We want some righting of wrongs, some healing of ills and suffering, some transformation to give us hope.  (At our worst we seek retribution for our ills, but let us set that aside.) So my rejoicing in simply existing last Saturday (and most days), is the luxury of a modern, bourgeois life that has enjoyed loving and being loved, having my needs met, and generally not being anxious about the future.  These thoughts do not undo my exhilaration but they remind me soberly that very few can feel that way.

Oh, what a glorious day it was.  Wopila!

--the BB