Daily practice; watering a little every day

I’m stoked.  I’m really loving the cool nights we’re still having in early May. I like sleeping with the windows open, so I can hear the night sounds.  There’s a night blooming jasmine just outside my bedroom window, and the scent is heavenly!  It’s been blooming like crazy lately, since I’ve been keeping it watered. It’s amazing how much difference it makes to just keep the plants watered every day.

My usual story to myself is that I am too busy to worry about moving hoses and sprinklers all around and what days I can and can’t water, and I should just let nature take its course.  But then I realize that I really do want to give the plants enough water to help them thrive.  So I have to make myself look at it a different way, not as a task that burdens my already busy schedule.  So now I look at it as what I get to do when I take a break from the computer during the day.  I can just hook up the longest hose and start way in the back and just give every plant a little drink and move all around the yard in less than 2 hours.  I get to say hello to each plant and I get to notice it and be mindful of it.  I can tell which are growing, who gets the best sun, who drinks more water.  I can count it as part of my daily spiritual practice, a daily checking in with other beings who share my space.  The idea of that appeals to me.  That sounds like a movie I want to star in.

Even so, I know that my intention is simply to keep the plants sufficiently watered.  So what if I have to trick myself by some mental play acting in order to motivate myself to get it done?  The play acting turns to reality as I find satisfaction in the daily doing of it all, as it makes my experience more fulfiling and allows me to draw more living out of life.  It gives my life more meaning.

And it gets the job done.


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