27 October 2014 A GARDEN MEDITATION
Whistling to the Birds
These days I am whistling to the birds. First, in the early morning the mockingbirds wake me up with their melodious, sweet assertions. They implore the air, and me, to attend to the day.
After I have had breakfast, I walk out into my garden--a paradise of cool, sweet air--a resurrecting experience much like waking up from sleep without the conscious, nagging mind. I then feed them, casting about their seeds under the rose bushes. I do this every morning because they are my constituents and will always vote for me, especially the black headed grosbeaks (senior members) who are the sure sign that all is well.
The mockingbirds perch way up on the whippy, swaying tips of the timber bamboo and sing out their territorial challenges. I, of course, whistle back to them. They wait a long moment eye me, process what they have heard, and whistle back songs from their repertoire; and, at the end of their birdy litany, they call out that which I have whistled to them. My son and daughter affirm that there is a communication going on for sure. However, they say that it is probably unknown what I have said, that which is whistled. But, that is not the point. I conclude that my whistling creates a mysterious communion of sorts, a connection with the minds and spirits of the mockingbirds.
Mockingbirds imitate cell phones and Caltrans whistles, so what communication is there? A bird with a machine? Come on-no way!
Nevertheless, the mockingbirds seem to enjoy my garden; a genuine part of its ambiance is this whistling on my part and their response. An antiphon involving living creatures.
I suppose that for eons people have whistled to the birds--hunters certainly have--and the curious birds have appeared. Now, people don't whistle as much as they once did, and besides what would shutdown, disaffected neighbors say. As a matter of fact, I cannot remember the last time time I heard a person whistle. Maybe people lose it with age or the loss of imagination and joy. I whistled a lot as a boy.
Well, as far as I am concerned, my proper neighbors here in rights-ville, middle class suburbia don't have much fun, let alone real joy. Neither are they appreciative of the scents of morning flowers, of the dew that caresses the grass and other plants, and of the calls of the birds. They don't even know the names of the birds that visit their "lands".
True, I don't know what I am whistling or saying to the birds. I simply like to do it. But, I do know that I feel their presences in ways that some people never feel the core of others in simple, human conservation. So, I suppose you could say that I am having a conversation, I am talking with them, the way dogs bark in the late twilight before going to sleep.
This is the main point; to be open to the Being of others, even to the Being of plants and birds.
Isn't that what Francis of Assisi experienced when the birds trusted him, coming to him and perching on his shoulders and hands when he spoke to them with affection and joy? He touched their Being.
Monday, October 27, 2014
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Write a Letter--use pen, ink and paper---- 25th March 2014
To receive a handwritten letter is a beautiful event, and to write a letter to a friend, a relative, or a loved one is an act of gracious recognition and respect, especially if one writes on good paper with pen and ink.
I am reminded of Alexander (Sasha) Barantschik, the the concertmaster of the San Francisco Sympnony, and of his words. My bassist son Charles tells me that Sasha says a document is worthless if it isn't handwritten on paper with pen and ink. This is irrevocably true even though the nouveaux of the present electronic world tell you otherwise. Emails have their place, but they are never a substitute for a real letter. Emails are the junk food of our non-caring, egocentric, disaffected times. At best they are utilitarian and fast, at the worst cold.
Can you imagine Obama or Putin doing a signing on an email, for the affordable care act, or, for the annexation of Crimea? How many times have you seen these two leaders on TV signing those documents, and with expensive pens? And what about signing a marriage document? The Mexicans sign it on the altar! Think of how many times you had to sign for your house mortgage, and with a pen. I still have mine.
Like Charles Krauthammer, I remember, when I was seventeen, the letters from my girfriends written in a sweet feminine hand, on pastel paper, containing some real or imagined subtle scent of their beings. Nothing of the electronic age can come even close to that.
I received , the other day, a letter from my daughter who is studying art in Adis Abiba, Ethiopa. She enclosed a single leaf of an indigenous Ethiopian tree--dryed, brown, and flattened out--yet when I smelled it there was a fleeting, ephemeral scent of Africa! Volumes were spoken to me by this leaf, and it opened a new botanical world for me. It sent me to my botanical reference works.
The tree, Kosso in Amharic, Hagenia abyssinica or African redwood, grows throughout most of Africa, even down to Congo.
Oh, and I must add, that Marianna wrote her letter to me from Adis Abiba in ink, and before the ink dryed she had inadvertently touched a word and left her partially smudged fingerprint on the paper. I have seen similar fingerprints several times on thousands of years old ancient pottery and on some paintings too. Is there a similarity between finger prints and the written word. Take a look at the whorls on your finger tips; they look like writing. Did writing evolve from finger marks and finger prints? Then, there is the parable of Jesus writing in the sand with his finger. Fingers create the identifying signiture, and the California DMV certainly thinks so as well.
Many years ago, my father sent me a tiny sprig of Spanish moss in a letter; that sprig has grown thirty years later now into a thriving drapery beneath my trees in a corridor of grey-green ambiance, reminding me daily of my father and his great love of plants. One cannot send seeds, plantlets, or cuttings by email.
May I be so brash in an inqusitive avuncular manner to ask how many people will "peg off" having never written or received a real letter? And, do not forget that letters are more permanent than emails. Real letters are of material substance. There are in the Amherst, Massachusetts library precious tiny bits and pieces of envelopes written on by Emily Dickinson. They are called "The Gorgeous Nothings" (Dickinson's own name for them) and have now been collected in a book by that same mysterious name, edited by Christine Burgin and published by New Directions. To see them and read the snippits of poetry on them gives an uncanny view of her presnce. I wonder what it would be like to touch them? Among these "nothings" is a tiny pencil stub she once sent to a friend who was tardy in writing to her. How witty.
Emails are ephemeral, fugacious. Where do they exist? Out there in abstract space somewhere? Letters are the blooded-cryptic-code of real human beings. I love to see the ink (green, blue, black, or brown) from a pen nib flow quiveringly down onto paper with my own intentionality to be sent to another human being. We say, "I don't have time for that. Please tell me,what do we have time for?"
I am reminded of Alexander (Sasha) Barantschik, the the concertmaster of the San Francisco Sympnony, and of his words. My bassist son Charles tells me that Sasha says a document is worthless if it isn't handwritten on paper with pen and ink. This is irrevocably true even though the nouveaux of the present electronic world tell you otherwise. Emails have their place, but they are never a substitute for a real letter. Emails are the junk food of our non-caring, egocentric, disaffected times. At best they are utilitarian and fast, at the worst cold.
Can you imagine Obama or Putin doing a signing on an email, for the affordable care act, or, for the annexation of Crimea? How many times have you seen these two leaders on TV signing those documents, and with expensive pens? And what about signing a marriage document? The Mexicans sign it on the altar! Think of how many times you had to sign for your house mortgage, and with a pen. I still have mine.
Like Charles Krauthammer, I remember, when I was seventeen, the letters from my girfriends written in a sweet feminine hand, on pastel paper, containing some real or imagined subtle scent of their beings. Nothing of the electronic age can come even close to that.
I received , the other day, a letter from my daughter who is studying art in Adis Abiba, Ethiopa. She enclosed a single leaf of an indigenous Ethiopian tree--dryed, brown, and flattened out--yet when I smelled it there was a fleeting, ephemeral scent of Africa! Volumes were spoken to me by this leaf, and it opened a new botanical world for me. It sent me to my botanical reference works.
The tree, Kosso in Amharic, Hagenia abyssinica or African redwood, grows throughout most of Africa, even down to Congo.
Oh, and I must add, that Marianna wrote her letter to me from Adis Abiba in ink, and before the ink dryed she had inadvertently touched a word and left her partially smudged fingerprint on the paper. I have seen similar fingerprints several times on thousands of years old ancient pottery and on some paintings too. Is there a similarity between finger prints and the written word. Take a look at the whorls on your finger tips; they look like writing. Did writing evolve from finger marks and finger prints? Then, there is the parable of Jesus writing in the sand with his finger. Fingers create the identifying signiture, and the California DMV certainly thinks so as well.
Many years ago, my father sent me a tiny sprig of Spanish moss in a letter; that sprig has grown thirty years later now into a thriving drapery beneath my trees in a corridor of grey-green ambiance, reminding me daily of my father and his great love of plants. One cannot send seeds, plantlets, or cuttings by email.
May I be so brash in an inqusitive avuncular manner to ask how many people will "peg off" having never written or received a real letter? And, do not forget that letters are more permanent than emails. Real letters are of material substance. There are in the Amherst, Massachusetts library precious tiny bits and pieces of envelopes written on by Emily Dickinson. They are called "The Gorgeous Nothings" (Dickinson's own name for them) and have now been collected in a book by that same mysterious name, edited by Christine Burgin and published by New Directions. To see them and read the snippits of poetry on them gives an uncanny view of her presnce. I wonder what it would be like to touch them? Among these "nothings" is a tiny pencil stub she once sent to a friend who was tardy in writing to her. How witty.
Emails are ephemeral, fugacious. Where do they exist? Out there in abstract space somewhere? Letters are the blooded-cryptic-code of real human beings. I love to see the ink (green, blue, black, or brown) from a pen nib flow quiveringly down onto paper with my own intentionality to be sent to another human being. We say, "I don't have time for that. Please tell me,what do we have time for?"
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Redirecting the Energy Force of Roses
Well, as I walk around the neighborhood viewing the frontyard gardens, I observe that almost all the gardeners have pruned their roses. One or two intransigent gardeners have not pruned their roses at this late date of 28th January, but that really doesn't matter. Most roses, except hybrid teas, will do well with little or no pruning. Of course most people in the suburbs adore hybrid teas--good and showy in the front yard. And, they feel so horticulturally correct.
I suppose there are only two reasons for pruning roses in late winter (such as it is here in Southern Calafia). The temperature in my garden dipped to only forty-seven degrees F this winter. It's warmer and drier here than it was forty years ago and the pinch is on. If we want to continue gardening, we will have to change our watering habits or move.
First, roses need pruning back (severely or minimally) to redirect the plant's energy or elan into new growth that will in turn produce a healthier rosebush and better blossoms. Trees and plants in the wild get trimmed regularly by wind, ice, some animals, and their own self limiting growth. A healthy, compact tea has a good reserve of energy, but if left unpruned, teas become a bit spindly, unkempt and weak. The yellowish,leaves hang on forever, looking dissolute and weary here in Califia, thus weaking the entire plant. The energy has not been redirected back into the plant base and the roots. So, pruning will create stronger force for the production of future blossoms. Shakespeare says in "Richard II" that Richard would have been a real king if he hadn't been so narsissistic and pseudo poetic and had taken a pruning hook to his garden, his realm. His realm was rank with sycophantes and he lived in the world of his own self centered ideals. So, unfortunaely he learned the hard way; he was violently deposed and lost what he thought was "his" realm.
Cut the roses back to about fourteen inches, or even lower if that feels good. Cut the cane at a slant just above a bud that points in the direction that you want the new stem or cane to grow. The slant allow moisture to drip off. Cut down old canes to the base of the bush. I usually remove two or three of these every year. The big thick canes get old and weak, and new shoots from the base need to form new ones.
It's that simple. Why "cane" I do not know--they don't look like canes to me except in standard rose buhes--the bushes that grow at the top of a three or four trunk-like cane. Must be some esoteric rosarian jargon word. And, I never use a sealenton the cuts, and neither do many of myexperience and worthy mentors. It is good also to to cut above directional buds so that they point outward from the center of the plant. This will create a rose bush that looks like an open "lovely" vase as the English rosers are want to say. This vase form looks good for some special reasons. More practically, the the rose bush is opened up letting in sun and air. Make the bush an orant form with outstretching arms to embrace the Cosmos. I think the English and the French might be the best growers of roses, both amatuer and professional. Some gardener says that the English roses are among the very best, and I agree. And do not forget that "Peace" ("Mme. Antoine Meilland") is a French rose. And just think of Miss Jane Marple musing in her cottage garden when you think of English rosarians.
Roses other than the ubiquitous flashy teas need little pruning. I cut out dead wood, spindly stems, and weak branches, and I use my feeling sense to help create a satisfactory looking rosebush form, as opposed to a shape. Feeling sense is the hardest thing for me communicate to some people. A "shape" reminds me of that Victorian thing or mold made with colored jello to be set on the table as a center piece to be "ooed" and "aahed" over before it gets too slimy and melts.
Second, roses need the pruning ritual because it cleans out dead branches, recreates the form and makes the rose beds look good in anticipation of the vegetative leaf buds yearning to push out the new year's growth. Roses also "need" (I suppose they expect it) the pruning ritual because people like to do it as a symbolic turning point for the new year. Actually, rose can be pruned at any time of the year, if necessary. The pruning can also become cause for a social get together. I get invited to at least one such ritual every January. Why, I do not know as I never attend, even though I love my roser friends.
Now, about water. We have received less than three inches of rain this last year and that is a serious matter! We will not be able to sustain roses if we don't get more rain. I don't know if this is temporary or long range. The water rates are going up, and as we all know, and the potter Michael Cardew says, "roses like artists are rich feeders." So, I shall write this in regard to what we would normally do if we had plenty of water.
After you prune the roses, you can spray them with a dormant spray, if you wish, to kill vermin and fungi. Then, apply a good organic fertilizer such as "Dr. Earth". I have found that the organic fertilizer with myccorhiza fungi (good fungi that help direct nutients to the rootlets) are the very best for healthy plant growth and blossoms. Organic fertilizers rejuvenate the soil and energize the plants into a mellow, steady growth, and they last longer than that hot-flash chemical stuff. No "hot shots" as with chemical fertilizers that are immediate and short lived! Use the organics now at half strength, and then apply it every six weeks thereafter, working the granules into the soil well and soaking them in. I really enjoy this earthy, dirt driven fun down on my knees. You will see a wonderful development of the leafage and blossoms. The tone of bushes simply becomes stronger and more vibrant. The leaves and petals have a depth that I can't quite describe.
Roses are the archetypal garden plant, the flower of spring and love, the scent of beautiful feelings. How could one have an evil thought when smelling that lovely rose scent? I hope I will always live in a clime where I can grow roses--as a boy growing up in North Miami, roses never lasted more tha a season, two at the most. The burned out because they had no rest.
Emily Dickinson wrote that every blossom is a resurrection, and I feel that she might have had the rose in mind.
I suppose there are only two reasons for pruning roses in late winter (such as it is here in Southern Calafia). The temperature in my garden dipped to only forty-seven degrees F this winter. It's warmer and drier here than it was forty years ago and the pinch is on. If we want to continue gardening, we will have to change our watering habits or move.
First, roses need pruning back (severely or minimally) to redirect the plant's energy or elan into new growth that will in turn produce a healthier rosebush and better blossoms. Trees and plants in the wild get trimmed regularly by wind, ice, some animals, and their own self limiting growth. A healthy, compact tea has a good reserve of energy, but if left unpruned, teas become a bit spindly, unkempt and weak. The yellowish,leaves hang on forever, looking dissolute and weary here in Califia, thus weaking the entire plant. The energy has not been redirected back into the plant base and the roots. So, pruning will create stronger force for the production of future blossoms. Shakespeare says in "Richard II" that Richard would have been a real king if he hadn't been so narsissistic and pseudo poetic and had taken a pruning hook to his garden, his realm. His realm was rank with sycophantes and he lived in the world of his own self centered ideals. So, unfortunaely he learned the hard way; he was violently deposed and lost what he thought was "his" realm.
Cut the roses back to about fourteen inches, or even lower if that feels good. Cut the cane at a slant just above a bud that points in the direction that you want the new stem or cane to grow. The slant allow moisture to drip off. Cut down old canes to the base of the bush. I usually remove two or three of these every year. The big thick canes get old and weak, and new shoots from the base need to form new ones.
It's that simple. Why "cane" I do not know--they don't look like canes to me except in standard rose buhes--the bushes that grow at the top of a three or four trunk-like cane. Must be some esoteric rosarian jargon word. And, I never use a sealenton the cuts, and neither do many of myexperience and worthy mentors. It is good also to to cut above directional buds so that they point outward from the center of the plant. This will create a rose bush that looks like an open "lovely" vase as the English rosers are want to say. This vase form looks good for some special reasons. More practically, the the rose bush is opened up letting in sun and air. Make the bush an orant form with outstretching arms to embrace the Cosmos. I think the English and the French might be the best growers of roses, both amatuer and professional. Some gardener says that the English roses are among the very best, and I agree. And do not forget that "Peace" ("Mme. Antoine Meilland") is a French rose. And just think of Miss Jane Marple musing in her cottage garden when you think of English rosarians.
Roses other than the ubiquitous flashy teas need little pruning. I cut out dead wood, spindly stems, and weak branches, and I use my feeling sense to help create a satisfactory looking rosebush form, as opposed to a shape. Feeling sense is the hardest thing for me communicate to some people. A "shape" reminds me of that Victorian thing or mold made with colored jello to be set on the table as a center piece to be "ooed" and "aahed" over before it gets too slimy and melts.
Second, roses need the pruning ritual because it cleans out dead branches, recreates the form and makes the rose beds look good in anticipation of the vegetative leaf buds yearning to push out the new year's growth. Roses also "need" (I suppose they expect it) the pruning ritual because people like to do it as a symbolic turning point for the new year. Actually, rose can be pruned at any time of the year, if necessary. The pruning can also become cause for a social get together. I get invited to at least one such ritual every January. Why, I do not know as I never attend, even though I love my roser friends.
Now, about water. We have received less than three inches of rain this last year and that is a serious matter! We will not be able to sustain roses if we don't get more rain. I don't know if this is temporary or long range. The water rates are going up, and as we all know, and the potter Michael Cardew says, "roses like artists are rich feeders." So, I shall write this in regard to what we would normally do if we had plenty of water.
After you prune the roses, you can spray them with a dormant spray, if you wish, to kill vermin and fungi. Then, apply a good organic fertilizer such as "Dr. Earth". I have found that the organic fertilizer with myccorhiza fungi (good fungi that help direct nutients to the rootlets) are the very best for healthy plant growth and blossoms. Organic fertilizers rejuvenate the soil and energize the plants into a mellow, steady growth, and they last longer than that hot-flash chemical stuff. No "hot shots" as with chemical fertilizers that are immediate and short lived! Use the organics now at half strength, and then apply it every six weeks thereafter, working the granules into the soil well and soaking them in. I really enjoy this earthy, dirt driven fun down on my knees. You will see a wonderful development of the leafage and blossoms. The tone of bushes simply becomes stronger and more vibrant. The leaves and petals have a depth that I can't quite describe.
Roses are the archetypal garden plant, the flower of spring and love, the scent of beautiful feelings. How could one have an evil thought when smelling that lovely rose scent? I hope I will always live in a clime where I can grow roses--as a boy growing up in North Miami, roses never lasted more tha a season, two at the most. The burned out because they had no rest.
Emily Dickinson wrote that every blossom is a resurrection, and I feel that she might have had the rose in mind.
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
RICORDI del GIARDINO
RICORDI del GIARDINO
Memories of plants in the garden
10th December 2013
Plants resonate with us in a wide variety of ways. We relate to plants in botanical knowledge, a gardening sense, an artistic approach, and in our memories. Old gardens or mature gardens that have been cared for over a long time, such as my own garden, are especially evocative of memories. My garden is a living repository of many plants and shrubs and trees that evoke memories of the persons who gave them to me. In fact, my garden, besides being a beautifully living hortus conclusus, is a place of plants that suggests to me the spirits of the persons who gave them to me.
Some examples. Once, many years ago my father sent a strand of Spanish moss to me in a letter. Now that Spanish moss grows profusely in the row of trees that make up my "jungle patheway" beneath trees. I think of him every time I see the lovely draperies of that moss on the tree branches. My wife's father brought me a root cutting of the Mermaid Rose, Rosa bracteata one Christmas. He joked that he bootlegged it from his home in Texas to us here in San Diego, California--he had hidden it in his boot fearing that it might be confiscated at the state borders. I have propagated that rootcutting into two massive plants, one that scrambles up to the second story on the sunny south wall of our home. He loved and admired the Mermaid, its blossoms being an image of feminine beauty. I thank him for his bootlegged gift every time I see the Mermaid in bloom and smell its rosey, fruity flowers, and I think of how much he adored roses. One more example from the thirty or forty memory plants of my garden: my grandmother gave me a pocketful of Four-O'Clock seeds when I was a boy of six years old. Because of this gifting, I have grown Four-O,Clocks in all my gardens and grow them to this day. I also have a variegated magenta and yellow variety that I collected in Cefalu, which is very near Trabia where my Nonna Lucia La Rosa was born. When I see the blossoms in my garden, I remember Nonna and how much those bright blossoms must have meant to her in the tiny garden she cultivated among the fumes, noise, and coal grit coated mill town of Hazelwood in the crook of an arm of the Monongahela river near Pittsburgh.
This winter I got the desire to grow asparagus. I have never grown it before. I suppose it brings back memories of when I was a young graduate student at the University of Illinois studying English renaissance literature. Winter there was bleak and hard for a boy of the south like me. I had lived and gardened in tropical Miami. Just getting through the winter was for me a personal resurrection.
One of my joys was driving the back farm roads in the spring looking for those fresh succulent asparagus shoots. I would spot a strong vigorous asparagus spear, brake my Volkswagen bug hard, pull over to the side of the road, jump out and cut of fresh spear. You had to get out there early on because all the others were doing it too. After an hour or so we had enough asparagus shoots for our dinner. Was there ever a more fresh, spring smell than the juices of the cut spears that had pierced the loamy, sweet, wet spring earth?
So, I went to the local nursery (Walter Anderson's) and inquired about asparagus roots. Asparagus will mature more rapidly from roots than from seeds or seedlings. From roots,one can expect a few good spears the first spring, but the second and third years are far more productive. All of the asparagus plants along the fence rows near Champaign-Urbana were planted by the birds, so the some spears were an inch thick because the roots were very old.
First off, one should dig long troughs in the newly spaded soil, as long as you want them, a foot wide, and a foot deep. Set the asparagus roots top side up and spread out the roots rather carefully. Then, cover the roots with two or three inches of good earth. As the roots sprout, cover them each time with another thin layer of earth. Gradually you will fill in the troughs until they are almost level with the surrounding earth. I like to leave a slight declivity so that the water will have a place to settle and work itself into the roots. It is helpful to cover the thoughs or rows with two inches of good manure every so often. Keep all that well watered in. Once the roots produce spears and you harvest them, the plants will morph into bushy, ferny plants which will bear seeds (if you have planted seeding varities). These plants will last over twenty years. Right, the birds love the seeds and will spread them all over the garden, starting the process of life and growth all over again!
My asparagus roots came tagged with the most informative of names. One is UC72, and the other is UC157---how creative and thoughful can the university people get. When I asked the friendly nursery clerk what those numbers meant, she politely made something up. I suppose UC means Univeristy of California. So, I shall give the plants flambouyant names when they produce spears.
Just incase, I bought a six-pack of little asparagus plants as a back up. I always do this sort of thing to hedge my bets. And, they are growing well now. As yet, the asparagus roots have not broken the earth. but once we are past the winter solstice, I am sure that they will be sprouting upward to the sun. Excelsior!
From very early childhood, the only constant that I have believed in is that the earth will always bring forth green grasses and plants in the Spring. Yes, for sure, there is the loss of living things, but there is also a regeneration. All things change. In the most profound and realistic appraisal, life evolves along side continuous loss and regeneration. Isn't Memory an attempt to retrieve the past, that which is seemingly lost, but indeed is not lost.
Charles Darwin perceptively and honestly said this when he proved that lowly earthworms continuously digest dead matter and turn it into earth ('mould'-his word) so that it could be the substrait for life again, new life. It's all about digestion and renewal. Darwin is saying that "destruction conserves life". For a complete explanation of this phenomenon, I suggest "Darwin's Worms" by Adam Phillips, a very clearly written little book on Darwin's lifelong fascination with earthworms. Darwin wrote about worms almost to the day that he died.
And finally, is it not only I who can remember which plants evoke individual people? And I do not mean that I projecting on them; that is I am not laying it on. Or, do the plants have an innate life energy that informs me about the complete history of their past? I am confident there is a sympathetic, telepathic relationship, the way strings of a musical instrument will vibrate, resonate is the word, when any other string is touched.
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Memories of plants in the garden
10th December 2013
Plants resonate with us in a wide variety of ways. We relate to plants in botanical knowledge, a gardening sense, an artistic approach, and in our memories. Old gardens or mature gardens that have been cared for over a long time, such as my own garden, are especially evocative of memories. My garden is a living repository of many plants and shrubs and trees that evoke memories of the persons who gave them to me. In fact, my garden, besides being a beautifully living hortus conclusus, is a place of plants that suggests to me the spirits of the persons who gave them to me.
Some examples. Once, many years ago my father sent a strand of Spanish moss to me in a letter. Now that Spanish moss grows profusely in the row of trees that make up my "jungle patheway" beneath trees. I think of him every time I see the lovely draperies of that moss on the tree branches. My wife's father brought me a root cutting of the Mermaid Rose, Rosa bracteata one Christmas. He joked that he bootlegged it from his home in Texas to us here in San Diego, California--he had hidden it in his boot fearing that it might be confiscated at the state borders. I have propagated that rootcutting into two massive plants, one that scrambles up to the second story on the sunny south wall of our home. He loved and admired the Mermaid, its blossoms being an image of feminine beauty. I thank him for his bootlegged gift every time I see the Mermaid in bloom and smell its rosey, fruity flowers, and I think of how much he adored roses. One more example from the thirty or forty memory plants of my garden: my grandmother gave me a pocketful of Four-O'Clock seeds when I was a boy of six years old. Because of this gifting, I have grown Four-O,Clocks in all my gardens and grow them to this day. I also have a variegated magenta and yellow variety that I collected in Cefalu, which is very near Trabia where my Nonna Lucia La Rosa was born. When I see the blossoms in my garden, I remember Nonna and how much those bright blossoms must have meant to her in the tiny garden she cultivated among the fumes, noise, and coal grit coated mill town of Hazelwood in the crook of an arm of the Monongahela river near Pittsburgh.
This winter I got the desire to grow asparagus. I have never grown it before. I suppose it brings back memories of when I was a young graduate student at the University of Illinois studying English renaissance literature. Winter there was bleak and hard for a boy of the south like me. I had lived and gardened in tropical Miami. Just getting through the winter was for me a personal resurrection.
One of my joys was driving the back farm roads in the spring looking for those fresh succulent asparagus shoots. I would spot a strong vigorous asparagus spear, brake my Volkswagen bug hard, pull over to the side of the road, jump out and cut of fresh spear. You had to get out there early on because all the others were doing it too. After an hour or so we had enough asparagus shoots for our dinner. Was there ever a more fresh, spring smell than the juices of the cut spears that had pierced the loamy, sweet, wet spring earth?
So, I went to the local nursery (Walter Anderson's) and inquired about asparagus roots. Asparagus will mature more rapidly from roots than from seeds or seedlings. From roots,one can expect a few good spears the first spring, but the second and third years are far more productive. All of the asparagus plants along the fence rows near Champaign-Urbana were planted by the birds, so the some spears were an inch thick because the roots were very old.
First off, one should dig long troughs in the newly spaded soil, as long as you want them, a foot wide, and a foot deep. Set the asparagus roots top side up and spread out the roots rather carefully. Then, cover the roots with two or three inches of good earth. As the roots sprout, cover them each time with another thin layer of earth. Gradually you will fill in the troughs until they are almost level with the surrounding earth. I like to leave a slight declivity so that the water will have a place to settle and work itself into the roots. It is helpful to cover the thoughs or rows with two inches of good manure every so often. Keep all that well watered in. Once the roots produce spears and you harvest them, the plants will morph into bushy, ferny plants which will bear seeds (if you have planted seeding varities). These plants will last over twenty years. Right, the birds love the seeds and will spread them all over the garden, starting the process of life and growth all over again!
My asparagus roots came tagged with the most informative of names. One is UC72, and the other is UC157---how creative and thoughful can the university people get. When I asked the friendly nursery clerk what those numbers meant, she politely made something up. I suppose UC means Univeristy of California. So, I shall give the plants flambouyant names when they produce spears.
Just incase, I bought a six-pack of little asparagus plants as a back up. I always do this sort of thing to hedge my bets. And, they are growing well now. As yet, the asparagus roots have not broken the earth. but once we are past the winter solstice, I am sure that they will be sprouting upward to the sun. Excelsior!
From very early childhood, the only constant that I have believed in is that the earth will always bring forth green grasses and plants in the Spring. Yes, for sure, there is the loss of living things, but there is also a regeneration. All things change. In the most profound and realistic appraisal, life evolves along side continuous loss and regeneration. Isn't Memory an attempt to retrieve the past, that which is seemingly lost, but indeed is not lost.
Charles Darwin perceptively and honestly said this when he proved that lowly earthworms continuously digest dead matter and turn it into earth ('mould'-his word) so that it could be the substrait for life again, new life. It's all about digestion and renewal. Darwin is saying that "destruction conserves life". For a complete explanation of this phenomenon, I suggest "Darwin's Worms" by Adam Phillips, a very clearly written little book on Darwin's lifelong fascination with earthworms. Darwin wrote about worms almost to the day that he died.
And finally, is it not only I who can remember which plants evoke individual people? And I do not mean that I projecting on them; that is I am not laying it on. Or, do the plants have an innate life energy that informs me about the complete history of their past? I am confident there is a sympathetic, telepathic relationship, the way strings of a musical instrument will vibrate, resonate is the word, when any other string is touched.
Monday, October 21, 2013
Monday October 21, 2013
Silence and Silences
I have been reading and studying Robert Sardello's book entitled "Silence-The Mystery of Wholeness". Sardello and Cheryl Sanders-Sardello's insights about Silence are indelible. I can tell that I might be getting it, (might) when I think many times a day and at night about what I have read.
He always capitalizes the word 'silence' as Silence. And, I think that this is for a very important reason. He wants us to understand spiritual-soul Silence in ourselves and in the world.
Yes, there is a Silence that is the absence of sound, or better yet, the types of sounds that we encounter all day and night long. You know what I mean, cell phones, beeps, loud talking, TV, and interruptions of all kinds. Getting to a place where there is very little or no sound (if almost no sound is possible) is a good starting point. I do not exist in sound of the aggressive, mechanical, hysterical kind in modern life when I am in my tiny cabin in El Porvenir at about 7,000 feet, in the red-pink glowing granite of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of New Mexico. Ocassionally a pine needle will drop onto the cabin roof and make a very delicate tap, ( a reminder of our existence) as if it is another presence. I can hear this pine needle sound because in the darkness of the night my ears and Soul have been attuned to the ambiant trees, plants, and animals in the forest where my cabina sits. Of course the raccoons and bears are a bit more brash, but they are comforting as well. Yet, this type of Silence is only a good starting point as Sardello suggests.
From early childhood I have always experienced the Silence of living things, especially the presences of plants, even of particles and objects. Yes, particles as in particles of glittering beach sand in a faomy ocean surf. When I encounter soul presences of plants I experience them as Silences, by which I mean that I feel a blending of myself and the plant or tree or animal that includes my own spirit or soul, in addition to a third kind of presence that is eternal. This is not emotion but a feeling which is a knowing This is the only way that I can explain or talk about this melding or blending, and I know that I am almost failing. If I wrote a poem about this state of Silence perhaps it would be different and more evident. Sardello in his succinct prose and Cheryl Sanders-Sardello in her beautiful prose poems at the end of every chapter say more clearly what I am trying to say. You would have to read their work yourself, I think.
I suppose that the other times I encounter this third presence of Silence is when I really experience the soul presence or being of another person. Most people are too into themselves to allow you to do this, (they don't want you inside) but the very young, the very old, and those of open, sharing honesty often will allow entry. These are whole People of Feeling. Another time during which I experience true spiritual Silence is when I am in the act of creating or making something--I don't even know that I am creating--I simply AM. There is Silence and timelessness. I suppose that early man, Homo Ergaster, felt the same way when he flaked stone points.
Of course, the gardening moment is the act of Silence. That is why so many artists, muscians, and poets love gardening. I am reminded of the wonderful American poet Stanley Kunitz who lived to be almost 100. He adored gardening or whatever one chooses to call a passionate caring for being in the presence of plants. And please consider, I don't mean that sentimental new age talking to plants. And then, there is W. S. Merwin who says that he cannot conceive of writing one line of poetry without being in the presence of plants. I heard him say this on the Lehrer Newshour as interviewed by Jeffrey Brown.
So, as the Sardellos say, at oneness with the Silence, true inward Silence of our being and the being of nature, evokes a third deep, healing, almost inexpressable Presence in Silence, and that is why there are artists of every kind--painters, sculptors, potters, writers, poets, dancers, you name them--they are countless, even people of all kinds, and yes, gardeners.
I do hope that I have expressed the insights of the Sardellos with accuracy and honesty. Please read "Silence" for yourselves. For me, Silence in the sense that I perceive it is a great gift.
Crown of Stars
Two nights ago I walked outside my cabin into darkness
it was all so still and quiet
I looked upward into the ancient tall ponderosa pines
way up at the tops as I almost bent over backwards
their tops forming a circle in the forest fastness
a deep crown filled with stars
stars that looked like bright white flecks of light
floating yet falling to earth
balanced brilliant and burning
energies of envigoration to all the earth
the white hot spears penetrated earth
and all its creatures-plants animals and mankind
St. Michael's Night
29 September 2013
Silence and Silences
I have been reading and studying Robert Sardello's book entitled "Silence-The Mystery of Wholeness". Sardello and Cheryl Sanders-Sardello's insights about Silence are indelible. I can tell that I might be getting it, (might) when I think many times a day and at night about what I have read.
He always capitalizes the word 'silence' as Silence. And, I think that this is for a very important reason. He wants us to understand spiritual-soul Silence in ourselves and in the world.
Yes, there is a Silence that is the absence of sound, or better yet, the types of sounds that we encounter all day and night long. You know what I mean, cell phones, beeps, loud talking, TV, and interruptions of all kinds. Getting to a place where there is very little or no sound (if almost no sound is possible) is a good starting point. I do not exist in sound of the aggressive, mechanical, hysterical kind in modern life when I am in my tiny cabin in El Porvenir at about 7,000 feet, in the red-pink glowing granite of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of New Mexico. Ocassionally a pine needle will drop onto the cabin roof and make a very delicate tap, ( a reminder of our existence) as if it is another presence. I can hear this pine needle sound because in the darkness of the night my ears and Soul have been attuned to the ambiant trees, plants, and animals in the forest where my cabina sits. Of course the raccoons and bears are a bit more brash, but they are comforting as well. Yet, this type of Silence is only a good starting point as Sardello suggests.
From early childhood I have always experienced the Silence of living things, especially the presences of plants, even of particles and objects. Yes, particles as in particles of glittering beach sand in a faomy ocean surf. When I encounter soul presences of plants I experience them as Silences, by which I mean that I feel a blending of myself and the plant or tree or animal that includes my own spirit or soul, in addition to a third kind of presence that is eternal. This is not emotion but a feeling which is a knowing This is the only way that I can explain or talk about this melding or blending, and I know that I am almost failing. If I wrote a poem about this state of Silence perhaps it would be different and more evident. Sardello in his succinct prose and Cheryl Sanders-Sardello in her beautiful prose poems at the end of every chapter say more clearly what I am trying to say. You would have to read their work yourself, I think.
I suppose that the other times I encounter this third presence of Silence is when I really experience the soul presence or being of another person. Most people are too into themselves to allow you to do this, (they don't want you inside) but the very young, the very old, and those of open, sharing honesty often will allow entry. These are whole People of Feeling. Another time during which I experience true spiritual Silence is when I am in the act of creating or making something--I don't even know that I am creating--I simply AM. There is Silence and timelessness. I suppose that early man, Homo Ergaster, felt the same way when he flaked stone points.
Of course, the gardening moment is the act of Silence. That is why so many artists, muscians, and poets love gardening. I am reminded of the wonderful American poet Stanley Kunitz who lived to be almost 100. He adored gardening or whatever one chooses to call a passionate caring for being in the presence of plants. And please consider, I don't mean that sentimental new age talking to plants. And then, there is W. S. Merwin who says that he cannot conceive of writing one line of poetry without being in the presence of plants. I heard him say this on the Lehrer Newshour as interviewed by Jeffrey Brown.
So, as the Sardellos say, at oneness with the Silence, true inward Silence of our being and the being of nature, evokes a third deep, healing, almost inexpressable Presence in Silence, and that is why there are artists of every kind--painters, sculptors, potters, writers, poets, dancers, you name them--they are countless, even people of all kinds, and yes, gardeners.
I do hope that I have expressed the insights of the Sardellos with accuracy and honesty. Please read "Silence" for yourselves. For me, Silence in the sense that I perceive it is a great gift.
Crown of Stars
Two nights ago I walked outside my cabin into darkness
it was all so still and quiet
I looked upward into the ancient tall ponderosa pines
way up at the tops as I almost bent over backwards
their tops forming a circle in the forest fastness
a deep crown filled with stars
stars that looked like bright white flecks of light
floating yet falling to earth
balanced brilliant and burning
energies of envigoration to all the earth
the white hot spears penetrated earth
and all its creatures-plants animals and mankind
St. Michael's Night
29 September 2013
Monday, August 12, 2013
AUGUST--"in the Name of the Bee" A Plant Meditation
In the name of the bee--
And of the butterfly--
And of the breeze--Amen Emily Dickinson
Dec. 10, 1830--May 15, 1886
Plants have within their beings more intelligence than we will ever know. Even the Over Knowers who think they know every thing, all the facts and information, will not ever really touch the Soul of the earth and its living creatures. The Over Knowers are essentially those lacking in sensitivity and intuition because their intellectual egos have dominated their personalities. They have lost touch with the Sophia or Soul of the earth. They are Artiste manques. They often rise to the level of scientist, dean, professor, religious fanatic or simply plain know it all.
Plants have so many magical properties or characteristics. We all know that their roots go down into the earth; geotropism or gravitropism. And then, there is phototropism: they grow towards the light. Also, they have a sense of touch at which every child wonders when he or she touches a sensitive plant. They can cast about their lovely, sinuous tendrils like a vortex of fingers and arms, grasping for a purchase to hold onto whatever is out there, kind of like a primordial consciousness that has evolved in us as a mind.
Plants have a characateristic named Thermogenisis. They can create heat. The mitochondria in their cells create heat much as the mitochondria in mammals do; much as our cellular activitiy does. As I was reading about Philodendrons, I came upon the thermogenic properties of the calyxes of these plants. The calyxes, sheathes, (calyx means in Latin large, flat blade) that hold the pointed column of tiny flowers are capable of producing temperatures up to 45degrees F even when the surrouding air is much colder. I see these sheath calyxes as chalices, or even as grails. They contain a pencil thick column of many tiny flowers and seeds. "Chalice" and "calyx" both share he same Indo-European root.You have seen the spathes or sheathes of Jack-in-the-Pulpits, I am sure. From childhood I afirmed their magical image, and they are magical. They are thaumaturgical--they work magic just as painters and all artists work magic when they to create beauty. Creating beauty that people recognize as such is no easy job: that is why there are so many talkers and very few true doers. Or, as Gulley Jimpson in Joyce Cary's novel, "The Horse's Mouth" calls the critics, the Crickets! They are always with us and chirping, endlessly.
I always wondered why the snow melted in rings around Skunk Cabbages in the spring back east. Thermogenisis. The plants and their spathes warm up enough to encourage their seeds to sprout early in the non snow covered circles of earth surrounding the Skunk Cabbages. I always wondered why the earth circle around each plant happened. The plant actually melts the snow. The warmth from the thermogenic spathe also encourages insects to come and get warmed up, thus making for good pollination.
Philo-dendron means love-tree. The commonest one is the ubiquitous P. scandens, a beautiful climbing plant seen everywhere in the world as a house plant,well almost everywhere. My favorite philodendron is the closely related Monstera deliciosa that scrambles up outside, the warm side and top of my piccolo greenhouse. It has large leaves shot through with Swiss cheese-like holes, and it produces a delicious fruit from it spathe, thus its name. Another favorite is P. Selloum or P. bipinnatifidum, hope I have the spelling right. No matter--you know it when you see it here in Southern California. It has huge 16-18 inche leaves and vine-trunks that are 5-6 inches thick embossed with leaf scars that uncannily take the image of eyes; they are wactching us! You will see this plant almost everywhere here as home owners popped it in to get tropical, exotic growth fast. Then, after it grows too big, they so carelessly, mercilously chop it out with a hatchet--aha, more cuttings to make plants for me and my friends! Finally, one more. Philodendron xanadu, a shrubby, low growing plant with leaves like oak leaves, popped in at shopping centers. It takes cold rather well. There are some beautiful specimens in front of Staples at the Plaza of the Four Flags in Solana Beach.
Philodendrons belong to the Aracea family of about 900 species. These plants are what are loosely called Aroids, having come mostly from the tropics. They have fleshy, thick roots, grow well in rich fibrous, acid earth, and like lots of water at the roots and on the leaves. I take my houseplant aroids outside a couple of times a year to leach out the soil and cleanse the stomata (pores) of the leaves with extravagant quantities of water. I have no patience with purist water conservative people who adore shrivelled up looking plants that look itch provoking. It doesn't take that much water to have a nice garden; cut out the swimming pools, eh? However, aroids are very comforting and attractive indoors, especially in the winter. As I write at this moment, I and my desk are surrounded by Diefenbachias, Philodendrons, Sanseverias, Stromanthes, and a friendly Money Tree. One container ship sailor told me that the first job every morning was to look after and water the plants. I can't conceive of a sentence or a line of poetry (if am so fortunate) without plants around me in my life, both outdoor and indoor.
One final comment--all Philodendrons are poisonous, and could cause a threat to children and pets, although I have never heard of a poisoning incident. They contain calcium oxalate which is made up of sharp needle crystals that are poisonous, attacking the vocal chords and causing voice loss, which is very painful and lasts a long time. That is why the aroid Diefenbachia is commonly called dumbcane. Milk may help alleviate the pain for humans, including some Over Knowers.
And of the butterfly--
And of the breeze--Amen Emily Dickinson
Dec. 10, 1830--May 15, 1886
Plants have within their beings more intelligence than we will ever know. Even the Over Knowers who think they know every thing, all the facts and information, will not ever really touch the Soul of the earth and its living creatures. The Over Knowers are essentially those lacking in sensitivity and intuition because their intellectual egos have dominated their personalities. They have lost touch with the Sophia or Soul of the earth. They are Artiste manques. They often rise to the level of scientist, dean, professor, religious fanatic or simply plain know it all.
Plants have so many magical properties or characteristics. We all know that their roots go down into the earth; geotropism or gravitropism. And then, there is phototropism: they grow towards the light. Also, they have a sense of touch at which every child wonders when he or she touches a sensitive plant. They can cast about their lovely, sinuous tendrils like a vortex of fingers and arms, grasping for a purchase to hold onto whatever is out there, kind of like a primordial consciousness that has evolved in us as a mind.
Plants have a characateristic named Thermogenisis. They can create heat. The mitochondria in their cells create heat much as the mitochondria in mammals do; much as our cellular activitiy does. As I was reading about Philodendrons, I came upon the thermogenic properties of the calyxes of these plants. The calyxes, sheathes, (calyx means in Latin large, flat blade) that hold the pointed column of tiny flowers are capable of producing temperatures up to 45degrees F even when the surrouding air is much colder. I see these sheath calyxes as chalices, or even as grails. They contain a pencil thick column of many tiny flowers and seeds. "Chalice" and "calyx" both share he same Indo-European root.You have seen the spathes or sheathes of Jack-in-the-Pulpits, I am sure. From childhood I afirmed their magical image, and they are magical. They are thaumaturgical--they work magic just as painters and all artists work magic when they to create beauty. Creating beauty that people recognize as such is no easy job: that is why there are so many talkers and very few true doers. Or, as Gulley Jimpson in Joyce Cary's novel, "The Horse's Mouth" calls the critics, the Crickets! They are always with us and chirping, endlessly.
I always wondered why the snow melted in rings around Skunk Cabbages in the spring back east. Thermogenisis. The plants and their spathes warm up enough to encourage their seeds to sprout early in the non snow covered circles of earth surrounding the Skunk Cabbages. I always wondered why the earth circle around each plant happened. The plant actually melts the snow. The warmth from the thermogenic spathe also encourages insects to come and get warmed up, thus making for good pollination.
Philo-dendron means love-tree. The commonest one is the ubiquitous P. scandens, a beautiful climbing plant seen everywhere in the world as a house plant,well almost everywhere. My favorite philodendron is the closely related Monstera deliciosa that scrambles up outside, the warm side and top of my piccolo greenhouse. It has large leaves shot through with Swiss cheese-like holes, and it produces a delicious fruit from it spathe, thus its name. Another favorite is P. Selloum or P. bipinnatifidum, hope I have the spelling right. No matter--you know it when you see it here in Southern California. It has huge 16-18 inche leaves and vine-trunks that are 5-6 inches thick embossed with leaf scars that uncannily take the image of eyes; they are wactching us! You will see this plant almost everywhere here as home owners popped it in to get tropical, exotic growth fast. Then, after it grows too big, they so carelessly, mercilously chop it out with a hatchet--aha, more cuttings to make plants for me and my friends! Finally, one more. Philodendron xanadu, a shrubby, low growing plant with leaves like oak leaves, popped in at shopping centers. It takes cold rather well. There are some beautiful specimens in front of Staples at the Plaza of the Four Flags in Solana Beach.
Philodendrons belong to the Aracea family of about 900 species. These plants are what are loosely called Aroids, having come mostly from the tropics. They have fleshy, thick roots, grow well in rich fibrous, acid earth, and like lots of water at the roots and on the leaves. I take my houseplant aroids outside a couple of times a year to leach out the soil and cleanse the stomata (pores) of the leaves with extravagant quantities of water. I have no patience with purist water conservative people who adore shrivelled up looking plants that look itch provoking. It doesn't take that much water to have a nice garden; cut out the swimming pools, eh? However, aroids are very comforting and attractive indoors, especially in the winter. As I write at this moment, I and my desk are surrounded by Diefenbachias, Philodendrons, Sanseverias, Stromanthes, and a friendly Money Tree. One container ship sailor told me that the first job every morning was to look after and water the plants. I can't conceive of a sentence or a line of poetry (if am so fortunate) without plants around me in my life, both outdoor and indoor.
One final comment--all Philodendrons are poisonous, and could cause a threat to children and pets, although I have never heard of a poisoning incident. They contain calcium oxalate which is made up of sharp needle crystals that are poisonous, attacking the vocal chords and causing voice loss, which is very painful and lasts a long time. That is why the aroid Diefenbachia is commonly called dumbcane. Milk may help alleviate the pain for humans, including some Over Knowers.
Saturday, June 8, 2013
MAY and JUNE CARE for the SPIRITUAL EARTH a GARDEN MEDITATION
I have been so involved with my garden and writing two columns a month ("The Italian Gardener" and a column on Italian heritage) for L'Italo-Amercano that I've nelected this Garden Meditation for May and June. Some dear friends from Canada have wondered why I've been lax. However, this meditation site has been in my mind and soul for a long time as I garden.
Three writers who have influenced me deeply are Krishnamurti, Rudolph Steiner, and Robert Sardello. All three of these very perceptive and wise people have voiced deep concern about the care of the Earth. And what I mean here is not some kind of mechanical, chemical, technique ridden approach to Earth. Or, something to chat about at cocktail parties with "experts". I don't mean some trendy approach that is held by those who rhapsodize about "saving the earth" and have never looked around and inside their houses and seen, really seen, how much every particular materialistic item has been taken, extracted from the earth, and air, and the sweat of human beings. Where in their entitled hazy thought do they think it all comes from--Walmart?
I mean care for the Earth in the sense of Love and Compassion.
I praise Saint Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) as one of the best examples of the compassionate human being--the Little Brother Flower. Not the Francis of cement statues with the little bird nestled in his arms, although that is one good way to start knowing him, and I have such statues that I myself have carved of wood. Robert Sardello, founder of the School of Spiritual Psychology, asks us to consider in his wonderful book "The Twelve Virtues" ". . . Saint Francis as a true knight of compassion." Sardello has written the most meaningful explanations of compassion that one can find. His writing about compassion is so very clear and truly helpful, practicable, not the usual self-help hype that we see so much of nowadays. Also, one has to read Francis' "The Canticle of the Creatures". I first came upon this canticle over fifty years ago when beginning my lifelong study of Italian literature. It just so happens that Francis' beautiful canticle is perhaps the first literary work in the Italian vernacular. Before his time, most Italian writers wrote in Latin. So, the "Canticle" is a linguistic-literary document of the Italian language, but far more than that--a spiritual achievement in words.
The "Canticle of the Creatures" praises all creation as infused, imbued with the spiritual energy of God. Steiner would call it etheric energy, and Krishnamurti calls it the "Presence" that he often mentions in his "Notebooks". For me, I suppose it is a kind of panthesitic imbuement, what I've felt from boyhood, much to the disappointment and chagrin of my academic and churchly superiors:
" Lord, most high, almighty, good, yours are the praises, the glory, and the honor, and every blessing. To you alone (Ad te solo), most high, do they fittingly belong." Prose translation by George Kay from "The Penguin Book of Italian Verse", 1958.
Please notice that Francis uses the familiar Italian usage of "te" like "tu", not the formal "lei", "you", when addressing God. He does not talk to God in the third person as when addressing a judge or the court. There is no distance.
"Lord" doesn't go over too well with me. I think of some Royal Baronet or such. But I do know what Francis intended to mean. In the Italian of the thirteen-hundreds, the Italian the words of his poem are "bon Signore" which have a gentle, respectful, graceful tone of diction and connotation.
Writing his "Cantico delle creature'' in the vernacular Italian (the vulgate) has great significance because the common people, the outcasts, the ill, the suffering, the birds and wolves, were the substrate of Francis' approach and teachings of compassion. He embraced all of human kind, and every particle of the Cosmos, and all social classes, and as you well know, even lepers whom he was not afraid to kiss.
I think of Francis as a precursor to the great English poet William Wordswoth. Wordsworth thought or professed to be writing in the language of the common folk. Not true at all. The folk never sounded as Wordswoth wrote. William frequently walked the backroads of England with his beloved sister Dorothy, his muse-like artistic medium; read Dorothy's letters and see what a great poetic spirit and writer she was, and she got very little recognition in her life, except from her beloved William. They both met met up with the disinfranchised, the sick, the poor, the weird, the emotionally disturbed, the wounded from the wars. He was not afraid to talk them, to be open to them, and to let them tell him their stories. He looked into their faces and sought to know who they were. William and Dorothy talked about these people during their long, evening conversations.
A good example of "meetin' up" is his "Resolution and Independence" (1807), a poem about an old war vetreran, a leech gatherer who has nothing to his name except his bare legs and feet with which he wades into the ice cold pools to attract leeches. The sucking leeches adhere to his legs; he picks them off and sells them to physicians and healers. He is Independent and resonates with Nature. Wordsworth found gold when he perceived the soul of that old leech gatherer and incorporated it as the archetype, the universal symbol of the man who gives of himself, gets what little he needs to live, and more importantly, serves. Also,Wordsworth saved himself for poetry and himself for life in that fateful meeting on the moor. Wordsworth had what is called a "privileged moment", a "spot of time", as he termed it, that told him what life is really about. He got up off his knees, as Nietzsche recommends. And, of course, the leech gatherer is Independent and free, thus far! Although his life is very hard and tenuous, he has faith and character and resourfulness, and no medical insurance to boot!. He is a lily of the field. I think you will really like this very powerful poem. It has grown on me over the years and I dwell on it often. When I reread it as I have just now, I feel better about my life.
Well, my tomatoes have grown very well and some even have "fruits" that will be ready in a few weeks. Commercial, chemical fertilizers such as Miracle-Gro tomato fertilizer once a week in solution makes 'em grow. However, I now have come to use organics, those natural fertilizers that are gentle, long lasting and very effective. Organic fertilizers are made of natural constituents that do a lot for the soil, so in using them you are replenishing the Earth. They enhance the earth that the tomatoes grow in because they contain mycorrhizae, a fungus that forms a symbiotic relationship with the plant's roots, thus delivering nourishment and water very effectively. Chemical fertilizers, although they have a place, (probably left on the store shelf) don't enhance the earth and feed the plants. Think of mycorrhizae as little, whitish baby roots entwined among the big plant roots. The the little roots or fungal strands embrace the big roots, uptake water, and feed them. What could be more Natural?
I have noticed that chemical fertilizers hit plants hard. They give a big boost at first like a double shot of espresso on an empty stomach. But then they wear off. The earth or soil takes on a dead look and feel. I can feel it with my fingers when I handle this chemicalized earth, and it does't smell good. And then, guess what? The plant must get another shot of coffee to maintain how it looks. Familiar? Also, with chemical fertilizers, leaf-tip burn and spindle-growth occur more readily during hot weather. "Dr. E. B. Stone" and "Dr. Earth" are two good organic fertilizers. I use them in small increments once a week, and in about two weeks I see plants that have rich leaf textures, good even growth, and productivity--- tasty tomatoes coming soon!
Also, just stand there and water the tomatoes by hand. "Stand and deliver" as the opera singers say. Use the thick stream of water from the hose to stir up the soil around the plant, and always water before you fertilize, and then water again to wash the fertilizer in. Without pre and after watering it would be like coffee on a empty stomach. I have little use for drip and automatic irrigation "machines"---another pvc application. They put people, especially the so-called "master gardeners" with their trendy plastic name tags, out of touch with the garden and its plants. I have knocked on many a neighbor's door and informed them that their automatic waterers are on the blink and that their water is flowing down into the street sewers, (you can quess how much they like me) and woe to those who depend on these devices while on vacation. I've seen it many times. Ah, the marvels of technical, time-saving mechanics, all designed (if used soulessly) to make us removed from the Spiritual Earth. I love to stand there and water, while I feel the garden ambiance and observe what those beautiful plants are saying to me.
I have been so involved with my garden and writing two columns a month ("The Italian Gardener" and a column on Italian heritage) for L'Italo-Amercano that I've nelected this Garden Meditation for May and June. Some dear friends from Canada have wondered why I've been lax. However, this meditation site has been in my mind and soul for a long time as I garden.
Three writers who have influenced me deeply are Krishnamurti, Rudolph Steiner, and Robert Sardello. All three of these very perceptive and wise people have voiced deep concern about the care of the Earth. And what I mean here is not some kind of mechanical, chemical, technique ridden approach to Earth. Or, something to chat about at cocktail parties with "experts". I don't mean some trendy approach that is held by those who rhapsodize about "saving the earth" and have never looked around and inside their houses and seen, really seen, how much every particular materialistic item has been taken, extracted from the earth, and air, and the sweat of human beings. Where in their entitled hazy thought do they think it all comes from--Walmart?
I mean care for the Earth in the sense of Love and Compassion.
I praise Saint Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) as one of the best examples of the compassionate human being--the Little Brother Flower. Not the Francis of cement statues with the little bird nestled in his arms, although that is one good way to start knowing him, and I have such statues that I myself have carved of wood. Robert Sardello, founder of the School of Spiritual Psychology, asks us to consider in his wonderful book "The Twelve Virtues" ". . . Saint Francis as a true knight of compassion." Sardello has written the most meaningful explanations of compassion that one can find. His writing about compassion is so very clear and truly helpful, practicable, not the usual self-help hype that we see so much of nowadays. Also, one has to read Francis' "The Canticle of the Creatures". I first came upon this canticle over fifty years ago when beginning my lifelong study of Italian literature. It just so happens that Francis' beautiful canticle is perhaps the first literary work in the Italian vernacular. Before his time, most Italian writers wrote in Latin. So, the "Canticle" is a linguistic-literary document of the Italian language, but far more than that--a spiritual achievement in words.
The "Canticle of the Creatures" praises all creation as infused, imbued with the spiritual energy of God. Steiner would call it etheric energy, and Krishnamurti calls it the "Presence" that he often mentions in his "Notebooks". For me, I suppose it is a kind of panthesitic imbuement, what I've felt from boyhood, much to the disappointment and chagrin of my academic and churchly superiors:
" Lord, most high, almighty, good, yours are the praises, the glory, and the honor, and every blessing. To you alone (Ad te solo), most high, do they fittingly belong." Prose translation by George Kay from "The Penguin Book of Italian Verse", 1958.
Please notice that Francis uses the familiar Italian usage of "te" like "tu", not the formal "lei", "you", when addressing God. He does not talk to God in the third person as when addressing a judge or the court. There is no distance.
"Lord" doesn't go over too well with me. I think of some Royal Baronet or such. But I do know what Francis intended to mean. In the Italian of the thirteen-hundreds, the Italian the words of his poem are "bon Signore" which have a gentle, respectful, graceful tone of diction and connotation.
Writing his "Cantico delle creature'' in the vernacular Italian (the vulgate) has great significance because the common people, the outcasts, the ill, the suffering, the birds and wolves, were the substrate of Francis' approach and teachings of compassion. He embraced all of human kind, and every particle of the Cosmos, and all social classes, and as you well know, even lepers whom he was not afraid to kiss.
I think of Francis as a precursor to the great English poet William Wordswoth. Wordsworth thought or professed to be writing in the language of the common folk. Not true at all. The folk never sounded as Wordswoth wrote. William frequently walked the backroads of England with his beloved sister Dorothy, his muse-like artistic medium; read Dorothy's letters and see what a great poetic spirit and writer she was, and she got very little recognition in her life, except from her beloved William. They both met met up with the disinfranchised, the sick, the poor, the weird, the emotionally disturbed, the wounded from the wars. He was not afraid to talk them, to be open to them, and to let them tell him their stories. He looked into their faces and sought to know who they were. William and Dorothy talked about these people during their long, evening conversations.
A good example of "meetin' up" is his "Resolution and Independence" (1807), a poem about an old war vetreran, a leech gatherer who has nothing to his name except his bare legs and feet with which he wades into the ice cold pools to attract leeches. The sucking leeches adhere to his legs; he picks them off and sells them to physicians and healers. He is Independent and resonates with Nature. Wordsworth found gold when he perceived the soul of that old leech gatherer and incorporated it as the archetype, the universal symbol of the man who gives of himself, gets what little he needs to live, and more importantly, serves. Also,Wordsworth saved himself for poetry and himself for life in that fateful meeting on the moor. Wordsworth had what is called a "privileged moment", a "spot of time", as he termed it, that told him what life is really about. He got up off his knees, as Nietzsche recommends. And, of course, the leech gatherer is Independent and free, thus far! Although his life is very hard and tenuous, he has faith and character and resourfulness, and no medical insurance to boot!. He is a lily of the field. I think you will really like this very powerful poem. It has grown on me over the years and I dwell on it often. When I reread it as I have just now, I feel better about my life.
Well, my tomatoes have grown very well and some even have "fruits" that will be ready in a few weeks. Commercial, chemical fertilizers such as Miracle-Gro tomato fertilizer once a week in solution makes 'em grow. However, I now have come to use organics, those natural fertilizers that are gentle, long lasting and very effective. Organic fertilizers are made of natural constituents that do a lot for the soil, so in using them you are replenishing the Earth. They enhance the earth that the tomatoes grow in because they contain mycorrhizae, a fungus that forms a symbiotic relationship with the plant's roots, thus delivering nourishment and water very effectively. Chemical fertilizers, although they have a place, (probably left on the store shelf) don't enhance the earth and feed the plants. Think of mycorrhizae as little, whitish baby roots entwined among the big plant roots. The the little roots or fungal strands embrace the big roots, uptake water, and feed them. What could be more Natural?
I have noticed that chemical fertilizers hit plants hard. They give a big boost at first like a double shot of espresso on an empty stomach. But then they wear off. The earth or soil takes on a dead look and feel. I can feel it with my fingers when I handle this chemicalized earth, and it does't smell good. And then, guess what? The plant must get another shot of coffee to maintain how it looks. Familiar? Also, with chemical fertilizers, leaf-tip burn and spindle-growth occur more readily during hot weather. "Dr. E. B. Stone" and "Dr. Earth" are two good organic fertilizers. I use them in small increments once a week, and in about two weeks I see plants that have rich leaf textures, good even growth, and productivity--- tasty tomatoes coming soon!
Here are some "Champion" tomatoes, and in the 2nd photo, butterfly weed, Japanese Negi bunching Onions, and tomatoes.
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