Meditation...

I'm behind schedule today.  As usual.  I can't ever seem to find enough time to work, exercise, play, explore my photography, sleep, rest, organize, clean, and connect with friends and loved ones.

My garden keeps coming last these days, so true to my post yesterday I chose to spend the time I needed there this morning.  Bright and early at 8am I did the following:

****  Cut down most of my basil which I was finding too bitter to make pesto out of and "green manured" it to break down for a few months in my lettuce bed.
****  Green manured my japanese eggplant that just wasn't producing and truthfully looked like an abuse case.  Someone should call to report me to the plant equivalent of Child Services.
****  Replanted my cilantro to a shadier spot after googling that it can't be in soil that heats up to 75 Degrees.  um yeah.  Given my watering schedule the past few months it's like its been growing in the Sahara. All bolt, no leaves.  I have very little hope for its survival, but have learned for the next round.
****  Moved my zucchini plant to try to give it space and hopefully grow.  So far this summer there have been few flowers and absolutely no fruit.  How neglectful of a gardener must you be in order to not have zucchini grow.  Barbara Kingsolver talks in her book ANIMAL, MINERAL, MIRACLE about making sure in the summer that your house and car doors are locked so as to not find yourself with your neighbor's excess zucchini (usually while you are out trying to unload yours!)  That's how neglectful!
****  Pulled up runners for my Chinese Lantern.
****  Harvested:  tomatoes: san marzano and yellow teardrop, basil, rosemary, parsley, a leaf or two of non-bolted cilantro, thyme.  So, basically nothing is growing in my garden this year!
****  Pulled dead leaves off of the teardrop tomato plant.
****  Moved a pepper plant to a sunnier space.
****  Tied up tomato plants.
****  Picked off bolting bits from the one basil plant I left standing as a companion plant for the tomato plants.  I used the massive amounts of those flowering bolted bits as more green manure.
****  Mulched with the new straw that the garden manager brought in.
****  Weeded nut grass.
****  Composted one sage plant and prayed for the health of the other.
****  And watered.  Long slow watering for the entire time I worked in the garden.  And still I know it wasn't enough to get down deep - my plants were so deprived....

And so at 11am, a full three hours - and according to my iphone app 823 calories later - I headed home;  late enough, dirty enough, and hungry enough that I could not make the "Introduction to Meditation" class I'd wanted to attend today.  "You failed at your list of things to do again," I thought.

But, then I realized that I'd spent three hours meditating.  No thoughts - good or bad - had entered my mind while snipping, digging, pruning, picking.  No fears.  No worries.  No lists of all that awaited me at home yet to do today.  No heartbreak.  Nothing.  Just silence.  Me and God in the garden with only empty mind space of meditative work in front of me.  And I know I still need to get to the class and learn to empty my mind and center my body and soul for when I'm not at the garden.  But, at least for today, I will check it off my 'to do' list:  Meditate: CHECK

And yes,  as predicted in yesterday's post, my manicure is ruined.