I will never forget the moment I heard Oprah say to a guest who was speaking about gardening, “I don’t understand what kind of exercise you can get by gardening. What is there to do?” HAHAHA. What??? I wanted to write to her immediately and say, “Oprah, spend a day with me in my garden and I will show you a workout!” Oddly, it’s not thought about in those terms. As physically demanding as gardening can be and usually is, the general focus on gardening is on what we are planting, when and how, not on the bodies who are performing those what/when/how activities. In reality, you know and I know that gardening is a challenging athletic endeavor with great rewards for our bodies. But also some perils and pitfalls if we stop listening. And this last post I did, reviewing some basic yoga poses that would assist the gardener in her practice, brought in some comments and email that made me realize how much we all have in common when it comes to gardening: We Aren’t There. We are lost in the zone, that seductive, all-encompassing passionate drive of creative vision and doing. What we seem to have in common is an experience of being completely absorbed in manifesting our various visions of beauty and creativity. We simply expect our bodies to be natural extensions of that vision, which seems to have no edges, or limits or sense of time. We override stretching and resting. We barely take time to pee. You know it’s true. Because we are lost, hopelessly, in the beauty of flow and design and manifestation in nature. There is no other place we want to be. Nothing else we want to be doing. Nothing else we want to hear or see or touch or smell. We are enraptured with the Universe, with the Greenest of Goddesses. With Pan himself. I know you know what I’m talking about.

Courtesy of artist Marsha Mello

The focus that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

Dylan Thomas

Then the next day we get up and we are perhaps a bit creeky. Or stiff or sore. Or we ache. Especially at this time of year, I find. And we think the magical formula is to do it all over again.

A few years ago, strangely just as Grandma was nudging herself towards the edge of the Earth, I was unexpectedly offered an opportunity to be a contributing writer for a book being published in London called The Financial Times Guide to Business Travel. What it turned out that I could best contribute was practical advice on staying healthy on the road, drawing on my multiple decades in Northern California, a rather progressive island of health conscious folks completely comfortable with all manner of alternative healing modalities. Today I’d like to tap into that wealth of knowledge and share a bit with you, for you to consider incorporating into your daily practices to enhance your gardening experiences even more, by taking care of the very vehicle that allows you that blessed luxury.

We’ve rather covered yoga, if you refer to the previous post. Since writing that, I have chosen the spot where I’m going to have my Handy Man build me a little wooden deck where I can practice yoga daily out of doors. I realize it’s more precious that way. I’ve elected a place I have been fond of as it catches the earliest morning sun’s rays, just adjacent to the rose arbor, not yet in bloom, but here’s what the arbor looked like last summer:

Can you imagine what it will be like once I’m lying there doing my final relaxation pose, looking up at the big blue California sky through those large red roses spilling across that old arbor? Wow. So that’s my plan. Build a space.

I think I very much like the idea of stretching beforehand, yoga or not. We do it for running and walking, right? Why not gardening? It makes sense. And I personally want to try to build perhaps a five minute stretch break periodically into my gardening. Maybe I will take this funny little black and white hen I bought to time stuff in the oven, which I have used all of one time, out into the garden and just let her ring me to a stretch break. Why not? It has its charm.

Are you all pretty good about keeping bottles of water around when you are out in the yard? I have to admit, I still have to work on this. When I do rehydrate, if it’s hot I choose something like SmartWater, as it will give me back the electrolites I’m losing. I never drink Gatorade. I can’t believe they tell you it’s good for you. See the color? Think oil products. Here are the ingredients for Gatorade Raspberry Lemonade: water, sucrose syrup, glucose-fructose syrup, citric acid, natural and artificial flavors, salt, sodium citrate, monopotassium phosphate, ester gum, sucrose acetate isobutyrate, red 40, blue 1. Are you kidding me? Please.

Now, comfy clothes and shoes. I bet you all do that really well by now. Right? If you’ve read me for any length of time you know already that I frequently can be found totally comfy in the early mornings gardening either in private out back or in public out front in my pajama bottoms and a sweater and scarf. I do. And usually I have on appropriate footwear, like those rubber gardening shoes you will remember the name of and I don’t, because I have some wannabe version. Or boots. Not flipflops as they will not protect my feet from chill or bugs or the straying mean plant that can stick me. Gloves? I know; gloves are tough. Some-times I do; sometimes I don’t. I love my hands in the actual dirt. I absolutely do wear them for any place where I could get pricked (leather for roses and black-berries) or bitten (we have black widows).

I am religious about sunscreen. Are you? I hope so. I’m not as good at the hat, though I certainly have no excuse as I own them. I even put one on a hook in the hall that leads out back. Maybe this year I will grab it on the way out. Why do I think they get in the way?

I wonder if we could start a little picnic/snacky thing we could do for ourselves? Because you know once you are in the thick of the Green Zone you are not going to go in and make a sandwich, are you? I thought not. Yesterday I was examining those wonderful picnic baskets that have everything you need inside, but I know that’s hoping for too much. (I was thinking more Earthquake in looking at those anyway. I thought that when the Big One comes I could maybe be surviving with a touch of class. You have to admit it would be convenient.)

And what in the world are we going to do about the reaching beyond our bodies’ means? Like the woman in Portland who wrote to me last week and said she lifted too much compost. This is going to be just a task we each face on our own, that perhaps begins with, “Do I perhaps need some help?” Asking for help is a good thing. Learning to receive is a good thing. Yes, you, Superwoman.

OK, so the sun is setting, hubby is coming home for dinner, whatever. You have to go in and shift gears. You’ve gotten a lot done today, you realize, as you look around with satisfaction, making a mental note on what you will do tomorrow. (I know The List.)

I personally don’t know if I can get myself to then do some kind of cooldown afterward, but maybe you can. I know I am headed straight for a bath after getting dirty. I just am. And it’s going to have bath oil in the water, probably lavender to get me to relax. If I’ve been exposed to pollens I’m going to choose eucalyptus oil. And bath salts, even if it’s Epsom. Also, there is something to consider about baths vs. showers. When you bathe you immediately begin to rehydrate. And there is nothing like soaking. Just a thought. I know you have your preference etched in stone.

OK, bath toys. Fingernail brush. Found the best one at a little drug store, cheapo and one of my favorite bath accessories. Pumice stone for those drying feet. Loofah or body brush for the skin. And I just love good cotton washcloths. They do the trick. Dry off. Moisturize. Now here’s the thing I particularly wanted to tell you about. There is a homeopathic remedy called arnica gel. I know about it because when my daughter was still little I ran the language program for a Waldorf School and we always had it around for kids who bumped or bruised themselves. You can get it in the health food store. I’m telling you right here. I could not make it without arnica gel. It has saved my back a billion times. I just rub it into any muscles where I know I’ve unduly placed too much stress, right after the warm bath. I also look myself over and put it on any little bruise, which will accelerate the healing process. We all get bruised in the garden pushing things around. And in the morning I’m right as rain.

I don’t know about you, but I absolutely make it a priority to get enough sleep. I need minimum of eight hours. I consider it one of the cornerstones of my good health. In the evening, in preparation for that precious restoral, I lower all the lights in my house and turn off all but the most necessary ones and have a nice cup of chamomile tea. Ahhhh. Nice. Ready for the good night’s sleep and a blessed new day.

‘Till soon,
Kathryn xoxo

Posted on March 27th, 2008 by Kathryn
Filed under: People at Work | 22 Comments »

By now most gardeners are rather chomping at the bit to get some seeds in the ground and get things moving, right? However even reckless I am watching the mountains that lie out at the perimeter of this valley eyeing the snow with respect and making the decision to wait it out until the ground is a tad friendlier-warmer to embrace my plans. So what do we do meanwhile? I’m a woman with a home and I know some of the things you do. You clean. You mend. You bake. You sort out papers and the closet and piles that were neglected during summer and fall. And strangely, for some of us (more than you might think if the poll I took today is any indication) we look at that jar of coins and think perhaps it’s time to get them processed and start over. Am I right? Anyway, that’s how it is here. I have been throwing extra (read, weighty) silver coins in a crystal jar and all pennies in their own separate container. (It was pink. Yes, I say was.) Periodically, probably around now, I pull out those little paper sleeves they give you at the bank and count them up and take them to the bank. I started recently with the pennies, which were spilling out of their (pink) pot. As I was counting (and recounting) pennies I watched the aggravation mount in my mind and found myself thinking what an enormous waste of time it was to sort pennies and bind them in round paper rolls. SURELY there was something better to do with them. The time expended was not worth the value of what they were going to return.

And then a little light went on and I thought with a big smile:

Find a penny
Pick it up
All day you’ll have good luck.

Bingo. And so on the spot I decided that if I couldn’t seed my garden, I could seed the sidewalk out front. With pennies. But only the shiny ones, I decided. Otherwise, it wasn’t the same. And so ever since, over the last couple of weeks I have religiously been planting a penny at a time directly in front of my house on the sidewalk. Oh, I’m very sneaky. I really don’t want any neighbors to catch on to what I’m doing. It’s my secret. So I bend over to pick up a “weed” which has traversed the lawn, or, whatever. You get the drift. And I leave the shiny penny.
And then I simply go back inside. And during the day when I feel like a nice stretch I go out front and see if it has disappeared. And usually it has. And then I leave another! How fun is that??

So largely I had decided I did not want to see who was finding those pennies. It was more fun to just imagine. And my intention, simply, was based in the realization that the value of the penny, IMHO, was more to be found these days in the old addage which we apparently all grew up with, than in any true monetary value. I mean, come on.

The Universe did give me a glimpse, however, into how this little secret might be panning out. I happened to legitimately be out in the lawn pulling up an offending little weed when two rather middle aged women who were out for a walk suddenly came to an abrupt halt as one eyed the penny. She snatched it up in a single sweep and held on to it like a victory, displaying it to her friend. You can imagine the smile that stretched across my face, as I deliberately turned away, when her friend pronounced animatedly, “And it’s a nice shiny one, too!” Oh, joy!

Satisfied that my secret foray into penny seeding indeed had merit, I decided to write about it and post it here. I needed a photo of a penny on the sidewalk. I went out and placed one squarely in the sun. Click. Refocus. Click. Refocus. Click. Refocus? What the hey? This is not working. Why not? Maybe it’s too flat. Maybe my camera (set on auto-focus, mind you) can’t DO flat. I look up. Two young Hispanic boys are approaching me. Ah-ha. Boys? I need you.
OK, here’s what you do. See this penny? YOU, I point at one, pretend to be walking along, spy the penny and pick it up and show your friend. Easy, right? Kids always think I’m slightly nuts but in a good way. They go along. Click. Refocus. Etc. Ad nauseum.

OK, reluctantly I accept that after all these years and all these photos my Pentax has a boo-boo. I take it to a camera store, straightaway. They say they will send it in for repair until they ask a critical deathly question. “How old is that camera anyway? Ten years?” Uh, more like 18. Uh-oh. I can see on their faces this was the Wrong Answer. They pronounce it dead and obsolete. (How could THAT BE? Did they see my photos on my post last week? Come ON.)

I turn this over in my mind and I decide to “Ride the Horse in the Direction He’s Going” as Werner Erhard used to say, and I ask immediately about a digital, rationalizing with amazingly rapid speed that maybe the Universe is sending me the message to Go Digital. As in finally. Hasn’t it been just a week since a visitor to my blog asked me what kind of camera I use and I confess it’s a 35mm? Did I tempt fate?

In ten minutes time I’ve decided I want the new Pentax digital. It just feels right, it looks right, and, besides, my birthday is right around the corner (always the driving post in any expenditure decision in my book–did you read about my diamonds???)

I come home. I hit google. I find three offers. I email David Perry WHILE I’m on hold at Abes of Maine. (Please be home. Please be home.) And as I’m placing the order David kindly emails me that, no he has not done business with Abes, but his father has and that’s all I needed to seal the deal. (Thank you, Mr. Perry.)

So it’s on its way. And then I wake up at 4:00AM and I find myself asking myself, “What if it’s not dead? What if it’s the auto-focus? What if it’s not the Universe necessarily wanting me to Go Digital? What if it’s the Universe telling me to stop using auto-focus and (gasp) learn to use a camera???”

At dawn I dig out the manual, which, mind you, I have basically not read in 18 years. It’s true. And I find the page on auto-focus and I turn it off. (Hello? It’s a little button on the front. As in On/Off.) And I grin as I put FILM in my Pentax. And I aim. And I shoot. And it takes.

I am now meditating, being a metaphorical kind of girl, on what “being on auto-focus” means to the Universe. If you have any particular insights, do tell.

Love and blessings,
Kathryn

Oh, yes, Happy Birthday to Me. Official Birthday Girl photo herewith:

My cake said, “Happy Birthday Beautiful Me.” I kid you not. Here it is!

And here I am. Do I look HAPPY??? I am!

Posted on March 15th, 2008 by Kathryn
Filed under: People at Play | 26 Comments »