This week I’ve given over the master suite to a yogi friend, so he has his own garden entrance and bath.  He’s fasting and on silent retreat. It’s nice to have someone to meditate and do yoga with twice a day. It reminds me of living in functional silence in the ashram years ago, sharing space yet no voices. That’s a familiar and comfortable place for me. Since he’s fasting, he can hole himself up and do his work without the distraction of meal preparation and eating. I’m staying out of the east garden while he’s here, so he has complete privacy.  Since 2001, I’ve stored some boxes for him, so he removed those and organized the shed for me. There’s workshop space now! I’ve been spending time on the back porch, sketching the cardinals building the new nest not seven feet away from me as I sit in the rocker with my sketchpad. The nest so far is mostly moss and thin twigs, some strands of my hair, they made a lot of progress on it today.  Tonight we got some good rain on the back porch roof, I love to hear that, and the wind was sounding the chimes in the courtyard… I love the sounds of nature. I like the feeling of sharing space for a short time with someone of like mind, of communion with a friend without having to engage in nonstop conversation. I like the feeling of someone working on their own project in another room and me working on mine, and us not feeling the need to update each other with everything we’re doing or get into a bunch of idle talk.  The Universe is showing me new things to like and appreciate. May it ever be so.

A yogi pal is visiting and we’ve been gardening. I went outside to do some morning watering, and ended up working on my bamboo and grapevine privacy wall.  Every length of grapevine I cut was the perfect length, and every bamboo bone I chose was the perfect height. I love creating natural walls, because I like a change of scenery.  As the older palmetto fronds and bird of paradise leaves begin to decompose, I add newly cut  ones.  One of my favorite things to do here at home is to cut new trails in my little patches of woods, and re-route the grapevine to grow where I want shade or privacy each season.  Then you have to be inside the yard to see the special little vignettes here and there, little meditative spots.  We have a lot of walkers-by here, and I prefer my yard look as nondescript and uninviting as possible.  But inside, it’s Paradise! I’ve been watering a lot, so everything is blooming and lush. I decided against a vegetable garden, since the only sunny spot in the yard is a patch in the back that I neglect, walking through it only to water the loquat, turk’s cap and arbicola in the northwest yard. My big turtle likes the crabgrass there in the sunny spot, preferring it to the lush grass in the shade. The wild bunny likes the lush grass.

To be great, you have to be willing to be mocked, hated and misunderstood. Stay Strong. Small minds can’t comprehend big spirits.  Spirit Science and Metaphysics

I myself consider it an initiation, an honor and a blessing when it happens.  Some say we undergo a crucifixion in every lifetime.  Our response to it balances karmic debt and determines how long we keep ourselves on the cross.  It’s the same as not coming to the altar to pray, expecting to receive fully, if we’ve not first forgiven everyone and everything.  The initiation is in being mocked, hated and misunderstood.  We run the gauntlet of the initiation by how we respond and react. The honor and blessing of it is being given an opportunity to resolve the past, do things differently and make a clean start.