One of the things I like best about gardening is that it gives me a temporal bearing that is not tied to a calendar. Plants don't care what day of the week or month it is. The ground isn't on a schedule that gets at all thrown off by leap years or Daylight Savings Time. As much as I would like in my head to have all the leaves up "before Thanksgiving," I realize that the leaves know nothing of Thanksgiving, and perhaps I shouldn't make that kind of deal about it, either.
Today they're calling for a high in the upper 50's, and there's talk of some snow on Sunday. There's one more yard waste pick up day before they resume service again in April. Today is my day to get as much of the leaf cleanup done as possible (I can't expect the last of the leaves to fall today just in time for me to get them up), to set out the salt buckets and shovels, and to make sure all the storm windows are down around the building. I don't know how many more chances I'll have to get all this done under such favorable conditions; we're that far into the season now.
If anyone were to ask me right now what I've gotten out of Zen, I'd tell them, "I know when to rake leaves."
Today they're calling for a high in the upper 50's, and there's talk of some snow on Sunday. There's one more yard waste pick up day before they resume service again in April. Today is my day to get as much of the leaf cleanup done as possible (I can't expect the last of the leaves to fall today just in time for me to get them up), to set out the salt buckets and shovels, and to make sure all the storm windows are down around the building. I don't know how many more chances I'll have to get all this done under such favorable conditions; we're that far into the season now.
If anyone were to ask me right now what I've gotten out of Zen, I'd tell them, "I know when to rake leaves."
that's pretty cool about learning when to rake leaves from zen. i can never figure it out & get weird looks when i go out to rake leaves in the wrong time of the year, aka mid-july or at midnight in the middle of february. people keep telling me autumn but sometimes when i go outside there aren't any leaves.
ReplyDeleteIt is pretty cool, actually. There was one year long time ago when I said to myself, "Ah, the leaves can wait another day," because I didn't feel like raking them then. Another day turned into another four months. Maybe something like this has happened to you, too.
ReplyDeleteYou see, it's not about when the leaves are or are not on the ground; it's about whether I'm going to rake them when it's time to rake them. So I still stand by "I know when to rake leaves" as an outgrowth of Zen practice. Yep, no question about that one.