WINTER INTERLUDE - 2020

Connie Bender, the esteemed Eugene psychic reader left this plane a year ago in February, with me wanting more.  We often presume someone will be around so we can connect with them later and then we can’t.  I’m at that age where this scenario is happening more and more.  In case I’ve forgotten, it’s once again the hour to put all those personal growth lessons, meditations, and spiritual gleanings to the forefront.

Here are two photos from Connie’s home labyrinth & garden where she lived and taught for decades.

I have a precious friend who due to illness has found herself in a facility (home).  She amazes me with her acceptance, trust and ability to make lemonade of the lemons that, without notice, rained down upon her.   Of course there are tears and disbelief but all the personal work she has done through the years has brought her to believing in her life as it is, even as it falls apart.  This is truly inspiring and comforting for me to see. I pray to also be courageous as life meanders & changes like my own face in the mirror.

I recall how the great Ram Dass, Richard Alpert spoke of this after his stroke. He was for me, a lightning rod of awareness back in the day. I mark his passing with memories and love. Here he is greeting a well-wisher at the Oregon Country Fair, July, 2002.

Rabbi Hanan Sills, a beloved figure, who brought me back to Judaism, passed this month after a full life of yearning, learning, heartache and passion. Here he is with another giant of a woman, Rebbitzin Alice Kinberg who passed tragically several months ago. Photo taken in Eugene, during Simchat Torah, September 1994.

How unexpected this life is with its poignant moments, heartbreak, joys and realizations of finitude. As we age we must learn to savor the moment even more or crystalize into regrets, old habits and worries. For me the Sages of every Spiritual path were onto the same Truth. Be kind, know thyself and don’t fall for other peoples’ nonsense.

At the end of the day we all want the same things.  To be loved, appreciated and understood. If we are open, we can take lessons from everyone we meet. For some, Winter is a time to curl up, spend quiet moments of reflection, gaze at the stars & come inside to the hearth of ourselves. The cozy comfort of warm sheets beats scorching heat any day in my book.

Who are we but our inner life, dreams & reverberating actions, the seeds of which are sown in Winter. For all of us our time on earth will end. How we step into that will determine our final days.

As for the garden, I knew it was time to slough off my procrastination and get out there to start cleaning up. How amazing was the moment of reentry! The feel of the earth, supple from the winter rains and the blessed aroma rising, hit me like a refreshing wind.  My first day back I planted the irises I had left in a large container under my carport after digging them months ago. I had put off their replanting all winter, reminding myself each time I passed that they needed to get in the ground!

I found a cozy spot in the rear garden for my latest impulse purchase of another daphne to match the magnificent late winter fragrance of this harbinger of spring.  Then came the excitement of transplanting the heritage rose cuttings I acquired last Autumn. This all began late last summer when I had an unexpected visitor to my garden, Michele Bulgatz, who said she passed often on her walks.  Finding me in the front one afternoon, she introduced herself. We had a tour and she invited me to the Heritage Rose Garden Club, a society I had not known about.  What a delightful club to belong to. Lectures, lovely people & new frontiers culminated last Fall to a swapping of rose cuttings.  All were generous in sharing the mysterious but simple ways of propagating roses. Last week I brought out from my garage the assortment of cuttings, inspecting each one for buds and minuscule growth.  Then I chose the best to transfer to gallon pots, marveling in this fun and exciting way to acquire new roses.  Back and forth I went to my computer to bask in photos of the gorgeous roses to I had chosen. Now to find space in my garden!