"There is the constant rhythm of day and night, the lunar cycle, and the yearly cycle of the sun. The significant aspect of these ocurrences within which we are constantly immersed is that they are rhythmical. Rhythm is the essence of the world as feeling."
"Love and Soul" by Robert Sardello
The season and we ourselves are progressing to the nadir of the year, the winter solstice December 22, when sunlight will be at its minimum in terms of hours. So, when does the actual change occur, the tipping of the balance from one side to the other, the nanosecond when we are no longer in days that are shorter, when the light is ascendent? Or, is the shift too subtle for us to perceive. However, it is reassuring to realize that the days are getting longer and that the eternal rhythm is evident in an upward direction.
I am fascinated with changes happening in Nature, so I watch for them very focusedly with attentiveness that requires on my part reason, feeling, sensitivity, patience, and most of all as Sardello says, Love and Soul. But, in Nature, seeing the change is truly difficult. All that we think we will see, or do see, is a result. But, if we are open in our observence, in the moment and the experience, we can see It. Then, we are a part of It. There is no separation between us and what we see, and yes, I agree, this is hard to do sometimes. I suppose this is what Krishnamurti means where he says that intelligence is borne of Compassion. There can be no intelligence without compassion.
The garden chores are easy and enjoyable now, as I collect as many leaves as possible to spread in the plant island beds. And, there is calm and meditation as I prune trees and shrubs and slowly cut up the trimmings with hand clippers into one inche or less pieces, spreading them in the plant islands. This takes time, but what is that in contrast to the eternal, eternity? Trimming and cutting is like writing with pen and ink--it slows down the mind to an idle like a finely tuned engine so that an essence can emerge. Lawrence said he could write only with his fountain pen, and Shelby Foote wrote his six volume history of the American Civil War with a dip pen. That is why I write all my first drafts with pen and ink. There is a magic in the ink, a magic in the dark depths of the liquid ink as I dip into it. I'll bet there are a lot of pen dippers among us out there.
As I rake, sometimes I find a type of leaf , like thousands of it I've seen before, but this Liquidambar leaf is mysteriously new, its reds bleeding out into halos of amber, yellows, oranges and brown at it perimeters--it is all new, I cannot explain! The leaf in it richness of color is like a crystalline lens of burgandy and amber. And if you hold it up to the sunlight, that is exactly how it is, like a piece of stained glass. I stand there and stare--who cares whether I get the leaf raking job finished? The leaves, the birds, the wind strummed branches don't care.
Season is also ritual. I go to my favorite, family owned nursery to buy onion sets. I've gone there for thirty-five years now, and I've noticed, (have you?) that the nursery clerks and I are all getting old. The son owner, a Swede, now looks exactly like his father looked of years ago. This stuns me for a moment, as I remember his father well after all these years, standing tall and serious in his usual blue jeans and brown shirt. He had that Nordic calm, a little distant as was his way, but certainly a kind man and a lover of plants who always warmed to plant-talk. I liked him and miss him. There is a certain rhythm to all of this.
My thoughts wander---'this December will they have yellow, white, and red Italian onions, and will they still be $2.99 a scoop and will they be plump and ready for planting and will there be a few of my gardener-clerk-friends milling about with whom I may "chat-kibitiz" as I go about the heady business of onion purchase'? "Yea, we gotta buy these onion sets before they all get sold out and the weather warms too much, then where the hell will we be for green onions, eh? There's time yet, but we gotta get on with it". "you're right man, just what the wife has been tellin' me". These questions, like the ritual, are always the same, almost.
When I get home, the onion area in my vegetable garden is ready; I sit on the same wooden stool, poke holes into the fecund earth with a treasured, old olive wood dibble, much like the ones my grandfathers and father used. I have a great sense of continuity. Will my children and grandchildren do this one day? Each hole---each earth-moist little receptive womb of darkness welcomes its charge of germinative life as I drop each bulb in place. I smooth the earth into the holes and the ritual is almost complete; I pause for some moments and feelingly worry about the sleeping onion bulbs; when has the change from so-called dormancy to the quickening of life occurred in the secrecy of earth's darkness which I must trust--when I first bought the bulbs, when the bulbs first touched the earth? I don't know. I must await another rhythm; the pointed leaf spears penetrating upward from the earth, and growing, thrusting out into the sun like burning, curved green swords.
