The Fall Garden

The garden in Autumn is always so rich looking, especially after a night of rain.

Roses are optimistically still trying to bloom, while the flower heads of the impatients fall toward the ground, recovering from those first semi-frosted mornings.

Every morning cobwebs are still stretched across the pond, spun by some dynamic little architect hoping for a few final meals.

Yellow Jacket crawls across wilting petals, stopping to drink from a raindrop, legs twitching, hardly even time to be immobile before a hard frost, and then winter.

The bark on the cherry tree is stained with rain, mottled and ridged, like the hide of an animal I pass by every day but do not notice in its stillness.

Meanwhile, Backyard Buddha is in perpetual meditation; though I know this is the secret to his mysterious smile, I doubt my face will ever appear so serene, despite a life time of meditation....

Instead, my face is lined with old "I don't get this" frustration furrows between the eyebrows, as ancient as my childhood, when I tried so hard to "get it".

But now there are new lines, a new "I don't know but I want to find out" look around the mouth, where I find my self laughing at my self, this serious self, with greater frequency.

Thank the Buddha!

It sometimes amazes me I can still be so mind-less. Where am I?

Sort of like Where's Waldo-- he rarely seemed to have much of a mindful presence either, just sort of looked as if he was wandering through space, though maybe the hat, glasses and the ubiquitous childlike striped jersey lent an air of space cadet....

But a stroll around the garden brings things into better perspective, a shift in perspective, looking at things from ground level, or looking up into a jumble of leaves and noticing how the shifting layers are like thoughts upon thoughts upon thoughts, and before we know it, we think we are our thoughts!

Must we be so serious about this?

The garden says don't give it another thought, just use your belly to breath, your tongue to taste, your nose to smell, your eyes to really look, your fingers to discover texture, heat and cold, your ears turned like a foxes ears, listening even for what moves within the heart space....

And then consider your place, your feet on the earth, your head sky-ward, like a mountain, you are upright, aware, a place for the 10 thousand things to rest, and then take flight again.