Transition...

It's that time of year again...

A summer garden becomes a winter garden.  

Transition.  

Transition has never been an easy thing for me.  I'm not good with change or leavings or new paradigms.  As adventurous as I've been in my travels and learnings, I'm not too great about it on the micro-level.

And my garden this year followed suit.  A few months ago I cut down all the summer crops and dutifully left them to lay fallow in their beds to return all that goodness to the earth.  I turned them into the dirt occasionally and when it stopped being 100 degrees in October (!!), I planted my winter garden.  I planted lots of lettuces and peas and carrots and beets and radishes and onions and garlic.

Three days later, the lettuces had been chewed down to the roots, along with the peas.  The seeds and bulbs for the rest had been pulled up out of their little three inch deep holes, like a reverse game of 'whac-a-mole".  Some critters had wreaked havoc.

Just like my garden this year, I've got lots of things being upturned.  I've got lots of decisions to make about what next year will look like for me.  I feel pulled in a few directions some of which seem practical and some of which seem, well, insane and scary to dream or try.  I'm not sure if they can all work together or if they even should.  I feel alone in it all and I'm not sure I have the spare energy to make them happen, but I'm reading, taking classes, thinking, seeking counsel from smarter people than me about it.  What I know for sure is it is going to require transition: of my work, my creative vision, my faith, and my belief in myself. 

Some people in my life are in their own transitions and in some cases I've had to admit that they don't want me along for the ride.  With others, we are working hard to replant and move from our summer garden to our winter garden.  I think if we can do that we'll have very deep roots that will take us to the end.

Part of my transition is most likely leaving this blog behind.  It's been an amazing place to share some triumphs of life and love and garden.  It's also been a place to quietly share heartache and robbed gardens and disappointments.  It's been a safe place to push and pull at my writing and see if there is anything to say...  And to all 6 of my readers (no seriously...), I thank you for encouraging me.  But, if the classes and readings and counsel are right, I must stop being sooo secretive and safe about it all. 

So, I'll keep gardening, but those updates will be over on my photo blog.  And eventually when it's right, I'll transition that one into the light.  But, it will be all of me - the photos, the garden, the writing.  All of it.  All of me.

I hope you'll go over to it and put it in your RSS feeds or however you get your news feeds so you won't miss anything when the time comes:  www.squidpictures.blogspot.com   

In the meantime:  I replanted my winter garden and then locked it down like Fort Knox!!!!   Here's a few shots of it... Some seeds are already sprouting.  How inspiring is that?!

Lettuce Entertain You

There was no shortage of lettuce in today's harvest.

With 1/2 this much still in the fridge from a few days ago!

The garden gave over a few other little treats, too:

A couple of radishes.

Some spinach (exciting because I usually get an F in spinach).

And some snap peas (which I usually get an F in, too!).

I can't wait to make myself a salad for dinner!

'harvest'

One for me.

One for some critter who got there first.

She's A '10'

There's been a bit of a scuttlebutt (is that the correct spelling of a non-word?) about the USDA's newly released 'hardiness zone map'.  This is the gardener's equivalent of a food pyramid.  It correlates to what you can plant and when.  Or rather, what is more likely to survive once you plant it.

So, you can imagine the horror when the new map arrived and people who were once unable to plant a dogwood tree could suddenly, well, plant a dogwood tree.  In other words, some zones changed quite significantly.

Thus the argument began:  global warming or more accurate terrain readings?  Since the degree change is fairly significant since 1990, I'm going with 80% global warming and 20% "they finally took lakes and oceans into consideration".   But, I'm kind of a conspiracy theorist like that.

For me in Long Beach, I seem to have changed a letter.  I always thought I was a 10 (um, you know, in garden speak), but apparently, I'm a 10b.  I'm not sure it's as big a difference as, say, going from a 34C to a 34D and suddenly your social life has a brighter outlook.   It's probably more like how a year or so ago they changed the zodiac signs and I went from a Capricorn to a Sagittarius.  Or was it to an Aquarius?

Anyway, just like I know in my heart I'm a Capricorn, my zone adjustment doesn't change the fact that I still can't plant rhubarb, but really WANT to.... It does, however, put me in the same exact zone as Malaga Spain and Nicosia Cyprus.  Which in some weird way is kind of cool.

The map is fun.  It's interactive so you can almost zoom in on your garden.  It was interesting to see that our East/West beach put me in a much hotter zone than a few neighboring towns which are just a couple of miles down the coast:

The Map

The map is a good rule of thumb.  But, truthfully, I'll probably continue to generally ignore it as well as my newly minted 10b status.  I mean, I'm STILL going to plant corn this summer - who cares if I'm three blocks from the ocean?

Yep, I think I'll just pretend I'm still a perfect "10".

She Let Go..

I spent a few hours weeding in the garden today.  It was a beautiful day for that kind of meditative work.  The East Village was quiet and I was alone.  The garden thinks it's spring, so as I worked peach blossoms floated on the wind into my hair.   The flower bulbs have come up and the hyacinth I planted in memory of my grandfather is in full bloom. 

The goal was to weed an area just outside my plot which had become overgrown with 'nut grass'.  For those non-gardeners out there, this is a hardy weed connected by a nut-type root.  It sends out underground branches which can continue on for forever, sending up grass and squeezing out anything else in its path.  Inevitably, if it’s NEAR your garden it will be IN your garden momentarily. 

There's been a lot of rain the past week and the ground was still soft, so these normally determined weeds were coming up easily.  The grass, roots and nuts were just giving over to me.  That got me thinking about something that keeps coming up in my new meditation practice: the reoccurring theme of ‘letting go’.  Sometimes in the Dharma talks it's followed by the words, “of attachments”, but not always. 

In all honesty, I’m not a good “let’er go’er”. 

I’m the keeper of family history, belongings, traditions – even recipes!  I’m sentimental and have long friendships.  I'm loyal. I tend to stick by people, running alongside them, cheering them on at times - even when they can’t believe in themselves or us.  I’ve done this in professional relationships, friendships, and love affairs.  I’ve even, sometimes, been thanked for the belief and persistence - for being the one not willing to let go.  

But, it gets confusing to me, this idea of 'letting go'.  As I pulled up that nut grass this morning, the sweet smell of the hyacinth found its way to me bringing back memories of my grandfather.   Does not letting go of sentimental feelings hold me back?  I absolutely know people who are not "sentimental".  Or at least claim they aren't.  Are they better in mind, heart, and soul for that?

What does it really mean to LET GO?  Or likewise, what does it mean to be let go?  How do you let go of being let go?  In particular, how do you let go of attachments to people without becoming heartless or sterile or robotic?   That last part confounds me the most. 

Where does the heart have a say or a place?

However, when it comes to releasing fear or pain or hurt, I get it.  I'm not good at it yet, but I get it:  the goal is to yield like that nut grass did today.  As those weeds were giving over to me, I thought of something I'd read recently which feels like a sort of freedom:

  

"She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go. She let go of the fear. She let go of the judgments. She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head. She let go of the committee of indecision within her. She let go of all the 'right' reasons. Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go……Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go. There was no effort. There was no struggle. It wasn't good and it wasn't bad. It was what it was, and it is just that. In the space of letting go, she let it all be. A small smile came over her face. A light breeze blew through her. And the sun and the moon shone forevermore." - Ernest Holmes

oops...

...I hatched another Monarch in the loft.  

I accidentally brought a chrysalis home on some rosemary the other day.  Luckily I caught it before it found its way into a roasted chicken!  I meant to return it to the garden, but days passed as those things do and this morning a beautiful Monarch greeted me in my closet, where I had ferreted the rosemary and her chrysalis away out of my kitten's grasp.

She has no spots on her wings, so this one is female.  She clearly had time to stretch her wings, but had only moved a half a foot from her chrysalis - funnily enough clinging to a wooden plaque I have with the British wartime advice of "Keep Calm and Carry On".  Still the poor thing must have been confused in the dark.  I guided her into a jar and took her back to the garden where after a few minutes pondering the milkweed plant, she tried her wings out. 

What a blessing to witness her very first flight... wobbles and all.  She flew 25 yards and landed on some fern. 

I think she'll be just fine.