garden

Seed.

~ taran.a.rampersad@gmail.com ~ Leave a comment

I was tending my bonsai projects yesterday when I noticed a seed sitting in one of the bonsai pots.

It seemed to be a bougainvillea seed. It had gotten wet when it landed, expanding as they do. I puzzled over it.

There are no bougainvillea within sight of my little window to the outside world, several floors above the ground floor. Clearly it had come from a bougainvillea somewhere. I let it be as I ran some errands, did some other things, but the seed stayed on my mind.

Other people have similar views. Yet that one seed found my place, found that particular pot, and it landed. The odds of that seem extraordinary. It’s not as if there was one nearby. The winds had brought it to there, up into my little external window to the world that is open about 15 feet by 7 feet. Somehow, of all the places to land, it had settled there.

Life. Opportunity.

Some people would talk about it being meant to be there, as if there were some intentionality involved. The only thing that happened is that a bougainvillea somewhere out of my sight had dropped a seed to the wind, probably one of many, and one landed in my little area to try to find purchase in this world, within the lines that demarcate my little viewing area. Was it an opportunity for me?

Not really. I don’t like bougainvillea. They are pretty from a distance, their colors vibrant, but they have no scent. They have thorns that make managing them cumbersome at best, painful at worst. No, I do not like them at all.

A few hours had passed and I went back to decide what to do with it. Should I stick it in a pot? Should I throw it away? Should I…

I looked, and it was gone.

The same winds that had dropped it there had likely taken it somewhere else, the burden of decision taken away as easily as it was given. Had I acted decisively, it would be planted out there, something I would tend and care for, or thrown in the trash, but I didn’t care for this opportunity.

It moved on, as have I.

You don’t need to jump at every ‘opportunity’. It gets tiresome, you end up investing time into so much and you may not find value in it at all. Or it could be very rewarding, fulfilling you in ways you wouldn’t expect. You don’t really know which is which. You hope that you get it right, but sometimes you don’t.

Things happen. We want some things to happen, we need other things to happen, and there are things that just happen.

Regardless, things just happen, just as sometimes you happen to other things. The difference is that we get to respond to things, that we can want things to happen and even sometimes conjure them into being on a whim.

Sometimes you can’t.

Things happen. If it’s a thing you want, you need to be prepared, and if it’s something you don’t want, you have to be prepared.

The seed escaped my judgement because I was prepared. I was prepared to allow what came into my life to leave in the same way.

It took a long time to learn that.

Maintain

~ taran.a.rampersad@gmail.com ~ Leave a comment

Warrior In The GardenIt is silent in the morning, aside from the gossip of the birds and the rustle of the wind through the trees and brush uncleared. The odd passing vehicle on the highway alternates between a diesel and a small gas powered vehicle.

Light peers over the horizon in the early morning, revealing the detritus people left at the boundaries – the two legged pests that generate rubbish faster than they can get it taken away – a constant battle on the perimeter not to be won in the near future, only to be dealt with. In the distance, the nearby houses and gardens, nearer, the vultures that roost in trees nearby whose roosts must be continuously disturbed so that they move elsewhere.

It’s a shame to disrupt this with the sound of a two stroke engine, but necessary – the whine of the blade as it spins through brush, clearing a path to clear a path, sometimes working the perimeter, sometimes working through brush that hides contours that can easily break an ankle or leg, sometimes clearing around the trees whose future depends on it.

Constant watchfulness, passively interrogating the wildlife nearby, always knowing where everything is, where it should be, recognizing things out of place – a stray footprint, tire mark, grass pushed the wrong way, clearings within spaces otherwise overgrown. Flycatchers pick out the insects left from the wrath of the spinning blade.

And it all falls behind – all becomes a part of the greater whole, and the mind is free to wander as all of this is watched. The matters of the day, the larger strategies, the small minds and the large problems pour out like the sweat of hard work. It is dangerous in this; it can be too attractive and draw from the present, so another part of the mind has to now keep an eye on the wandering mind so that while free it is safe and can be snatched to the present quickly. It watches the shadows, listens to the sounds, keeps track of tools… A passing driver waves, a wave back, a rustle in the trees or a snap, check 6.

Time passes, work is done, a break. The machine cools, and the morning returns to the natural sounds – more vehicles now. Maybe some bananas, definitely some water, and with better light a survey of what was done and what needs to be done.

And again. And again. And, maybe, again. Meditations, clear thought, hard work.

All one has is not what one can claim, but what one can maintain. Taking a hill means nothing when it is lost tomorrow, making a large profit means nothing when the money is spent immediately. True success in any endeavor is supposed to be a ratchet, locked so it cannot spin back – building on a foundation rather than constantly fighting one.

And that is coming.