The Scent of Lilac

I began my walk home from Takoma Park under blue late evening sky.  The moon overhead seemed larger than it had just a few hours before in the late afternoon.   The sky slowly darkened, so gradually I didn't notice the change until a couple of planets - Jupiter and Venus, emerged from the backdrop.

By the time I reached home the sky was dark, and some of the brighter stars joined the planets in view.  It was a lovely spring evening - not warm, but not chilly either - with just a tiny breeze.

As I walked down our street, I wondered if I would catch the scent of lilac as I passed the neighbor's yard.  Yes, there it is.  Aah...

Finish What You Start

As part of my effort to be more purposeful and less scattered with my time and energy, I've been working to stay with tasks until they are finished.

In addition to the sense of accomplishment when each thing is finished, there are fewer things being stuffed into the closet of things to do, which become a source of anxiety and stress.

Perhaps most importantly, this discipline begins to reveal the decisions and trade-offs inherent in life.  Do I do this, or that?  If I choose, I can accomplish one or the other.  If I fail to choose, I may start both and leave both unfinished.

I learn more about how much time it takes to do a thing.  I learn that it takes little time to wash a few dishes, dry them and put them away.  Seldom am I so hurried that I have to leave them.  In fact, almost never.

The better I get at focusing on one thing and finishing it, and the better I get about matching tasks to time, the more I can accomplish.  I can get a lot done in the little spots of 5 minutes here, 10 minutes there, rather than wasting the time because it doesn't seem like enough.

The Closet of Things to Do

There always seems to be so much to do.  Things come to mind, but can't be done right away, so they cram into the mental closet of things to do.  So many things, and sometimes it seems as if they all have to be done at once.

But, of course, they can't be.  So why allow them to be a source of stress and anxiety?  Take a deep breath, and bring your mind back to the simple task of watching your breath come in.  That attention will connect your mind back with a realistic sense of time.  Once settled in your center, you will know what you need to do next, and you can do it, leaving the rest of the things in the closet until their turn.

Cardinals and Dogwood

There's a dogwood tree outside our kitchen window.  It's the neighbor's, but it sits close to the fence and many of the branches hang over our yard.  A couple of those lower branches are dead, and those seem to be the favorite ones for the cardinals to sit in.

I see both the female and the male there, sometimes both at the same time.  One time today the female was there, and calling.  Her upper body would expand and vibrate, and then she would call.

They never stay long.  It's as if the dogwood is one stop on a circuit they make around their territory.  Fly in, check out what's going on, then fly to the next station.  I saw them once take off and fly, one after the other, around to the far side of the neighbor's house.  I wonder how large their territory is.

If I could have just one of the flowering trees that brighten the neighborhood in spring, it would be the pink dogwood.  Many other trees have bright flowers that hang from the branches, but the dogwood branch tips curl down and support the upward facing flowers from below - open, light, uplifted.  Something about the color and transparency of the petals - they seem to glow in the light.

The Greatness of Hubble

The 25th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope has been in the news for the last few days.   Hubble images of distant galaxies are commonly recognizable, but the implications of them to our understanding of our place in the universe has not been integrated well yet.

On NOVA last night, in a special Hubble show, they said that Hubble showed that there were more stars in the universe than grains of sand on all the beaches and in all the deserts of the Earth combined.

That's a long way from the thought that Earth sits at the center of the Heavens with Sun, Moon and stars revolving around it, a tidy little system created for us by a diety, and the corollary thought that humans are central to the purpose of the universe.  

In searching for information about the Hubble, Google turned up a link to a column posted on Forbes.com.  Forbes is famous for featuring wise and witty quotes.  Today's happened to be:

On earth there is nothing great but man; in man there is nothing great but mind.  Sir William Hamilton

My instant reaction to that quote was that it seemed very wrong.  I don't agree that man is greater than the rest of life on earth, or even the physical processes of earth.  Further, I disagree with the notion that man can be identified as separate from earth to be held apart for special greatness.  How can man be great, but not the systems of our living planet that enabled man to evolve and enable us to live through the next breath? Is man, an organism that relies on oxygen and nutrients created by other life, greater?  For greatness, I'll nominate a tree, or any other photosynthesizing autotroph.  Without them, I'd be dead.

As for mind being the greatest of the great -- nah. The human mind is amazing, but so is a butterfly. The flying abilities of machines created from our minds pale in sophistication compared to the commonest of birds.  Hamilton, it turns out, was a very smart man, a man fully caught up in the powers of his mind.  But I think his thought here reveals more about the limitations of someone so caught up in the thinking mind than it is a true insight into what is great.

This inquiry took me down another unexpected path, too.  There are several Sir William Hamiltons, and I initially looked into the wrong one.  One was Scottish, and lived from 1731-1803. He was a diplomat, spent time in Italy, and seemed to have an interesting life.  A second was also Scottish, a 9th Baronet, and lived from 1788-1856.   The author of the quote was an Irishman, Sir William Rowan Hamilton, who lived from 1805-1865.  As a physicist, astronomer and mathematician, I'm sure he would have appreciated the Hubble and what it has revealed about the universe.  Perhaps it would give him a different perspective on greatness.

One Thing per Evening

One thing each evening, during the work week.  That's my goal.  If I can get one thing done, that's five things finished by the end of the week.

Tonight I did more, because I didn't have a class to teach.  I got some emails sent and did some anatomy research.

But one thing is enough.  Instead of failing to complete all my pending tasks, I succeed at completing the most important one that day.  Much better.

One Week in Spring

I drove up to teach a class tonight at The Happy Yogi.  The trees in the parking lot were in full bloom.  Kwanzen Flowering Cherries - or as I call them - "carnation trees."  They are large, mature trees - the Cherry Tree Shopping Center has been there for quite a while.  As a "shopping center" (i.e. strip mall) it shows its age, but the trees are magnificent - laden with clusters of pink, carnation-like blossoms.

Last Wednesday when I was there, I don't think they were blooming at all - at least not enough for me to identify them by their blooms.

In my neighborhood I see the trees every day, and the change seems to emerge.  Even if the change is rapid, it still evolves over a few days and my mind grasps the process.  But seeing the transformation of one week all in one step, is quite astonishing.

Enough, or Too Much?

I've recently been paying attention to what, and how much I get done, and what I don't.  My first conclusion is that I'm not nearly selective enough in what I allow myself to take on - either because I don't want to say "no," or because I underestimate how long a thing will take, or because I find too much interesting, or don't want to admit that I have limits.

But I clearly have limits, and there's no better way to be honest about how much I can do than to finish off each thing I start, and not create a pile of partially done projects.

I had modest aspirations for this evening, I thought - easy to accomplish.  I wanted to eat supper, create an invoice for some of my yoga teaching, watch a Daily Show episode with Pam, and write a blog post.  

I cleaned up the dishes after supper and started on the invoice, then realized I was a little behind on my yoga class recordkeeping so set to bring that up to date.  I took a break for the TV show, then completed the invoice and emailed it to Willow Street, and finally set about the blog post. It is 9:40, and I need to go to bed as tomorrow is the first of my two early mornings for the week.

So I finished what I wanted to, but it seems like not a lot for an entire evening.  Being honest about the time I have and what I can realistically accomplish, and then choosing wisely how I will spend that time doing the things that are truly most important, will help me accomplish more important things and have less stress in the process.  But it means I will have to do better at making the initial choices of what to take on and how much to commit to. 

Beauty Everywhere

Today was warm and humid as I walked to work after lunch.  I stopped several times to take in the blossoming beauty of spring.  First was at the tulip tree in our front yard, the long petaled tulip-like purple blossoms beginning to unfold.  Under the tree, in dirt soft from last night's rain, were deer tracks.

Then I stopped at a redbud to look closely at the flowers, and then, a little farther up the street, passed under this pink dogwood, emerging flowers backlit in the sun.

Riches abound this time of year.  Beauty everywhere.

I Am Earth

Earth Day is April 22. It's Wednesday this year, and many celebrations occurred this weekend.  As part of Takoma Park's activities, I taught a yoga class at Willow Street's Takoma Park studio.

I'm struck by how strong my identity is - my feeling that I'm separate and apart from the world around me - a human living in the world.  When the obvious, undeniable truth is that I'm part of Earth.  I am built from it, molecule by molecule, assembled into a particular form, a living system of energy and nutrient gathering and complex regulatory systems that can maintain me albeit with constant change, for a few years.

My life is dependent, each minute, on the oxygen I breathe - provided to me by other living things; on water that I need frequently, and food that I need regularly.  If Earth can't provide those things to me, I cannot live.

I am Earth
assembled
from a microscopic kit
containing its own instructions.

Two cells joining to press Start on a life,
connected back through time to the origin of life -
a link in a long, unbroken, and still growing chain.

A unique organization of matter and energy
sustained breath by breath,
by energy assembled by other living things,
by water, cycled by the Sun.

I sense, I am aware, I am conscious
I am Earth, sensing, aware of, conscious of itself.
Not separate from Earth, observing it from a safe vantage point,
But part of Earth, completely dependent on its continued ability
to provide oxygen in clean air, fresh water, and ample food.

The Three Actives

It was warm, in the upper 60s, this morning when I walked to work.  The morning sun was bright, and I stopped to watch a male cardinal that was perched in the sunlight above the road.  He called, softly, as in a conversational tone, and hopped from branch to branch, never staying long in one spot. Then he took flight and flew over my head and into the brightness of the eastern sky.

At work I felt tired, lacking in energy.  I found myself dealing with things as they came into my email box, or with people who walked in the door, and realized that my energy level let me react to things, but I didn't have the creative, proactive energy that I often do.

Being aware of when I'm able to be proactive, when I'm able only to be reactive, and sometimes, even inactive, is useful.  I want to take advantage of the times I have a lot of energy and ideas, but also recognize that I don't always feel that way, and don't necessarily have the ability to enter the proactive state just because I'd like to.

Spring Schedule

I'm watching spring evolve.
The week of March 30, the flowering cherries began to bloom and daffodils appeared.  Forsythia bursts out in bright yellow.
The week of April 6, the small magnolias are beginning to bloom, cherries and daffodils continue, spicebush has green tips.  The invasive, lesser celandine, is also in full bloom.
April 10 - red buds just starting to bud - 1 tulip was up and blooming
April 11 - the magnolias and cherries are in full bloom - some of the petals are already falling
Week of April 13, bush honeysuckle has been leafing out for a couple of weeks, warm day - almost 80 today.  Couple of large bumblebees out.  Crickets singing like crazy at (behind) Happy Yogi), Cherry blossoms on Alton Parkway are much deeper pink then when they first emerged.  Dogwoods beginning to flower - yellow-green bracts are visible first - larger white ones emerge later
Leaf canopy over Rock Creek greening rapidly.  Forsythia is beginning to green.
Noticeable increase in morning bird song quantity and variety.

It's still the week of April 13, but noticeable change comes daily.  Violets are blooming, and the tulips have unfolded to their characteristic cup shape.   I walked home down Alton Parkway Thursday (the 16th).  The cherry trees I've been watching have lost all their larger pink petals - the dark red center of the flowers remains as the leaves are growing and uncurling.  Nearby, several red bud trees are nearing their peak brightness.

At the end of the week, we went for a walk in the park.  Garlic mustard is coming up, and we pulled as much as I could carry.  Spring Beauty, a native flower, is blooming amidst the growing carpet of invasive Lesser Celandine.  The Red Bud trees are in full bloom, and the Tulip Tree in our front yard is starting to bloom.

Week of April 20.  Daffodils and tulips are still out.  Redbuds are in full bloom.  Dogwood flowers are 1/3 grown or so.  The tulip tree in front of our house is beginning to bloom.  Up on the corner, some tulip trees in a sunnier spot are past their prime.  Oaks are flowering, maple seeds are growing at the tips of the branches.  Almost all the trees are starting to leaf out.  Sycamores seem among the last - still waiting on them.

Monday 4/21 - neighbor's lilacs just starting to bloom. This evening I noticed the spirea in the back yard is in full bloom.

Thursday 4/23 - sycamores are beginning to leaf out.  Dogwoods are near peak.  I saw a small red azalea in full bloom on the way to work.

Week of April 27.  More tulips up now.  Some lilacs - in sunny spots - in full bloom, as well as spirea.   Garlic mustard flowering. One of our strawberries has a flower.  Azaleas are starting to bloom.  Some have been out for a few days, and others are just beginning.  Dogwoods, Kwanzen cherries, and redbuds are a little past peak.

Week of May 3.  Crepe myrtles are beginning to leaf out.  Iris are blooming, as the red buds leaf out, and small seed pods grow where the flowers had been.  The bloom of Azaleas continues to grow.

Week of May 10.  Roses in downtown beginning to bloom.

Week of May 17.  Irises fading - ours are gone.  Sweet Cicely, a native plant with tiny white flowers in umbels, is blooming along the path between Dale and Highland drives.

Ides of April

Yesterday was April 15, the middle of the month.  The ides, as the Romans would have called it.  It was Wednesday.  I have an early morning yoga class, about a 20 minute walk away.  After, I make a stop for coffee and then go on to work.

It's a small class, with just two regular students, who, it turns out, aren't all that regular. One of them currently has an injury (not caused by my class) and is under instructions to lay off from yoga for a while.  The other is an attorney with busy professional and family commitments who is able to come perhaps half the time or a little more. They're good at letting me know if they can come each week, but I need to show up anyway because there might be people dropping in.

Yesterday, as it turns out, no one came.  So I spent about 20 minutes talking with Judy, the person staffing the studio early on Wednesdays.  It was nice to learn some more about her, and have a little more connection than just saying "Hi" once a week.  Then I went to Starbucks and had a cup of coffee while I worked on ideas for my special Earth Day yoga class coming up on Sunday.  After I ran out of coffee and ideas, I walked on to work, still earlier than normal, so I was able to get in a nice yoga practice of my own in the gym before changing and going to work.  Turns out that having no one show up for class gave me some time to enjoy.

There's a week each year when the leaf canopy over the city, especially Rock Creek Park, springs out from the bare branches of winter, spreading bright green color like a huge, slow brush stroke.  Looking out from my office window yesterday, I realized that it is this week.  More birds have arrived too, and the early morning air is filled with vigorous singing.

April Showers

Yes, April showers.  All day.  What we call "Juneau weather."  The sidewalks were covered in tree flower petals that had been brought down by the heavier early morning rain.  Then a light mist and drizzle set in for the rest of the day.

But it's spring.  Except for the people, the rest of life doesn't seem to care about the rain.  The robins and squirrels are tooling around as usual, gathering food and building their nests.  A sparrow sits in the wet tree and calls out his territorial challenge.

Ten Breaths Redux

It has been several years now since I was walking home one day, and while passing under a large flowering tree covered in light pink blossoms, had the thought to be still and take it in for ten breaths.
It takes about a minute and a half, and the impact of staying focused, but open and receptive for that long is amazing.  It seats the experience deeply in my memory.

Today I walked home past that tree again.  Though still covered in blossoms, many have fallen and lie in the gutters or in little piles against a brick wall.  I reached down and picked up a handful of petals, first struck by their coolness, then by the silky texture, and finally by their lightness and seeming fragility.

Then I thought about the profligacy of nature - that this tree, after resting through a long, cold, winter, grew these many thousands of petals using energy and nutrients stored up from last year, and then, after just a couple of weeks, will shed them all to be recycled back into the earth.

I enjoyed another ten breaths standing under the flower-laden branches looking up through the pale petals to the blue sky beyond.

Evolution of Spring

I'm keeping a general, week by week, log of the evolving spring.  On my walks to and from work, I note what trees and flowers are blooming.  There's an order to spring.  The exact dates will differ from year to year, but the general order prevails.

Today was perhaps the nicest day we've had so far this year.  70 degrees, and just a light breeze.  Early in the morning the sun caught the new green leaf buds high in the tulip poplars by the house. The early flowering trees, like the cherries the area is famous for, are at their peak.

I rode my bike over to Takoma to teach two classes today.  I have a 2 hour break between them, so I rode down the hill to Sligo Creek and sat by the creek in the warm sunshine for a while.  The ride back up to the studio was considerably harder, but that's OK.

Today, I felt that special feeling that is so characteristic of spring.  A feeling of the world as a happy, wonderful place, and that this is the truth about life.  The long winter is behind, and the world opening up before me now is full of possibility and wonder.

Saturday Olio

Today had a nice flow.  It was a day with no obligations, but lots of options.  The options I chose included morning meditation, a no-stress review of the tax entries, grocery shopping, bicycle shopping, trumpet playing, bike riding, yoga planning, and pistachio shelling.

I was thinking that if I have one thing to do, I feel fine.  If there's a long queue of things piled up behind the one I'm trying to do right now, I feel stressed and anxious.  A few days ago, working on the taxes felt like that.  There were many things to do, I wasn't sure how long some of them would take, and at some points the project seemed impossible.  Feeling out of control of the outcome and not being able to predict the time it will take brings more anxiety.  

Of course, there are always many things to do.  Putting them on a list helps by taking them out of my mind temporarily.  The list provides a little separation, some space between me and the task.  It's written down, it won't be forgotten, so I don't have to keep circulating it around in my head.  When it is time, each item comes off the list and gets worked on.  Today worked like that.

The light outside is slowly fading, and I can feel myself fading with it.  I hear a dove's cooing call, and remember listening to it this morning as I was sitting in silence.

A Quick End to Running

I started running again about three weeks ago.  Just a tiny bit - 15 minutes - intending to ease back in very gradually.  I hadn't run since injuring my foot last summer - a stress fracture, I think.

Then I ran on the treadmill.  And outside again.  At some point, my right butt started to hurt.  It hurt when I ran, and then it even hurt when I walked.  This is not good.

I'm not exactly sure what it is, though the symptoms fit the description of high hamstring tendinopathy pretty well.  It seems to be improving daily.  Walking usually doesn't bother me now.  Cycling seems OK, and yoga, as I'm avoiding intense hamstring stretches.

I won't be running for  awhile.  I do hope I'll be able to run on a regular basis, at least a little, without injury.

Tax Time

It seems cruel that tax filing time is right when spring arrives.  Wouldn't it be better to get that over sometime in the depth of winter, when it's dark and cold out?

Every year, it seems, there's a day or two of painful digging through records, figuring out tax instructions, and getting all the necessary information entered.

This year was worse.

I intend to not have another year that I have to spend several days working through all the details of tax filing.  The solution, I think, is in paying attention throughout the year and spending a little extra time to put things in order rather than just putting them in a pile or a computer folder.

Keeping up with things, a little at a time.   That seems like the way to go.

Spring Happenings

I woke in the early hours to the occasional sound of rain showers on the roof.  By the time I rose, the rain had stopped.  I went out for a short run.  The morning was very springlike.  Temperature in the 50s, and high humidity, so it felt warmer.  Quite a few people were out on the trail.

When I finished my run at the top of the street and turned to walk back to the house, I saw a few water droplets hanging from small tree branches, and noticed that each one was a little lens, showing a miniature view of upside down tree branches.

I worked at home until 11:30, then walked to work.  The droplets were gone - fallen off or dried up.  Walking through the path between Dale and Highland Drives, I passed six deer foraging right beside the trail.  I walked slowly and talked quietly to them.  They watched warily, but didn't startle off.

Riding Into the Wind

We went for a bike ride on a new trail today - out and back.  The ride out was good - we worked hard and kept up a good pace.

Then we reached the turn-around and headed back.  We felt, immediately, a stiff breeze in our face.  Steady, and strong enough to make level stretches feel like a hill, the wind flowed past.

I hadn't noticed there was a wind at all when it was at our backs, though it no doubt contributed to the buoyant feeling of the ride.  But, in our face, there was no ignoring it.

Suddenly, the wind was the biggest factor in the ride.  It made the ride feel laborious and slow.  Coming halfway into the ride as we were starting to tire, the feeling doubtless exceeded the true force of the wind.

My reaction was to not fight it, but to back off, find a shape to ride in that was least buffeted by the wind, and move through the flowing air with as much ease as possible.

I didn't want to ride into the wind, but I had to accept conditions as they were, and adjust to give myself the best possible experience.

The Seasonal Affective Order of Spring

Everything is changing.  Always.

Sometimes the change is gradual - glacial even.  Depending on what kind of instrument you are using and the length of time you observe, the change might be imperceptible.  But change is happening.

This time of year, nature thrusts change in your face so it is impossible to ignore.  Buds are forming, the flowering trees are beginning to bloom, and change is obvious from one day to the next.

Life is waking up to begin its annual frenzy of energy gathering and reproduction, creating the oxygen we need to breathe and the foods we eat to sustain us.   Using, in those processes, the carbon dioxide and organic waste we egest.   Solar powered cycles of use, transformation, moving energy and nutrients throughout the system we depend on for existence.

How does this season affect us?  It wakes us up, motivates us to activity.  It pulls us outside to feel the new warmth and smell the waking life in the newly thawed earth.  It energizes us, and uplifts our spirits, opening our minds to new possibilities.

How Deep?

My perception shifts -
Sometimes I feel very separate from the world
 - an independent being living in an environment
 - an actor on a set, interacting, but in a discretionary way.

Other times I feel like I'm an organ of a larger organism
 - connected, related, fully dependent
 - giving and receiving in equal measure
 - being affected and having an effect

The second perception is growing stronger
 - I'm an ephemeral organization of energy from a universal pool

Like an area in the atmosphere where moisture coalesces enough to absorb and reflect light
 - and appear distinct, as a cloud.

I'm also energy, occupying space, identifiable as a form, but always changing.  Always needing to gather and refresh myself from the pool, to counteract the inevitable, constant dissipation.

I can't be separated from the world around.  Through my senses I'm in constant relationship with it.  Some small part of this I'm consciously aware of - most I am not.

I've been contemplating how the signals I get from the world affect how I feel.
 - Why a sky full of cloud puffs floating past makes me feel happy?
 - Why a roiling dark sky and cold wind makes me apprehensive?

Is it because I'm remembering something
 - a pleasant childhood day in the sun, or
 - the chill of being caught out in a storm?

Or do I have a deeper relationship with the environment
 - parts of my mind, my emotions, that are expressing evolved responses
    of the millions (or how many could it be?)
    of mutations and tests of survival and reproductions
 - that have created the genetic program to assemble me from the
   energy and matter - simply more particular forms of energy -
   of the world?

I think it does run very deep - it isn't just what I have experienced -
 - really, how could it not be?

Pink and Blue

I walked to work before dawn this morning, passing a cardinal loudly singing his three part song.  On my walk home, I stopped under some cherry trees in the park that are just beginning to bloom.  Their pink color bursts out from the gray and brown backdrop.  Other trees and shrubs are just beginning to bud.  Change will be visible day by day now, as life here on this part of Earth wakes up from the dormancy of winter.

A blue jay flew up into a tree by the cherries, another bright spot of color.  I don't see them nearly as much as robins, cardinals, and mockingbirds.  They were a common sight in Kansas as I was growing up, and I enjoy seeing them, and their raucous attitude.