Backyard Gardens in Springtime

 

April in Vancouver, Washington
Our Backyard

Springtime Thoughts

Springtime Thoughts

April - Quotations

"O Day after day we can't help growing older.
Year after year spring can't help seeming younger.
Come let's enjoy our winecup today,
Nor pity the flowers fallen."
-  Wang Wei, On Parting with Spring

"When the time is ripe for certain things,
these things appear in different places in the manner
of violets coming to light in the early spring."
-  Farkas Bolyai

April - Quotations

"Every spring is the only spring - a perpetual astonishment." 
-  Ellis Peters

"April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain."
-  T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land, 1922

April - Quotations

Burn Me with Your Beauty Then

"How many million Aprils came
before I ever knew
how white a cherry bough could be,
a bed of squills, how blue
And many a dancing April
when life is done with me,
will lift the blue flame of the flower
and the white flame of the tree
Oh burn me with your beauty then,
oh hurt me tree and flower,
lest in the end death try to take
even this glistening hour..."
-  Sara Teasdale, Blue Squills, 1920  


April:  Quotes, Sayings, Lore, Chores

California Bees and Blooms

"California is home to over sixteen hundred species of undomesticated bees--most of them native--that populate and pollinate our gardens, fields, and urban green spaces. In this absorbing guidebook, some of the state's preeminent bee and botany experts introduce us to this diverse population. California Bees and Blooms holds a magnifying glass up to the twenty-two most common genera (and six species of cuckoo bees), describing each one's distinctive behaviors, social structures, flight season, preferred flowers, and enemies. Enhancing these descriptions are photographs of bees so finely detailed they capture pollen scattered across gauzy wings and iridescent exoskeletons.
Drawing from years of research at the UC Berkeley Urban Bee Lab, California Bees and Blooms presents an authoritative look at these creatures, emphasizing their vital relationship with flowers. In addition to opening our eyes to the beautiful array of wild bees in our midst, this book provides information on fifty-three bee-friendly plants and how to grow them. Just a few square feet of poppies, sage, and phacelia are enough to sustain a healthy population of wild bees, transforming an urban or suburban garden into a world that hums and buzzes with life."

California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists, 2013

The Spirit of Gardening

The Red Bluff Notebooks

Hydrangeas

 In the Northwest, May and June are months when the Hydrangeas are in bloom, as long as it stays cool.

October Morning Mild

A repost from 2013

"O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away."
-   Robert Frost, October

October: Poems, Quotes, Sayings, Lore

"Gardening is the slowest of the performing arts."
-  Mac Keith Griswold

The month of October, for us, in Red Bluff, California, means cooler daytime temperatures, some rain, brisk mornings, falling leaves, ripening apples and persimmons, closing down the summertime vegetable garden, planting a winter garden, blooming chrysanthemums, longer walks, pruning, fertilizing, and cleaning up the yard and gardens.  

A few photographs of our garden are included below.  The photographs were all taken by Karen Garofalo in October 2013.

Tulips Time

The Willamette Valley of Oregon features numerous flower farms. 

At this time of year, the Tulips come into full bloom in late March into April. 

We have enjoyed a visit to the Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival before.

Dried Garlic Flowers

 

A Gift of Dried Garlic Flowers

We dug up and turned over the soil.
We added cow manure and mixed well.
We flatten the ground and raked it up.
We sat down: rested, reflected, enough.

We opened packets of garden seeds.
Seeds for herbs and heirloom chives.
Bags of onion sets and garlic cloves.
These starters met all our needs.

For the many Springs of Future Years,
when the Allium stalks stand high
and bloom; we will remember (Yea!)
our First Garden in Red Bluff CA!
We achieved that today.

Later—
on the table, a gift for hours,
dried white garlic flowers.

 

mpgEoW2 295, October 1998

Table of Contents
Highway 99 and Interstate 5

Table of Contents, Volume 2, Alphabetical
Highway 99 and Interstate 5, West Coast USA

Index, Subjects, Themes, Ideas, Volume 2

At the Edges of the West, Volume 1
Highway 101 and Hwy 1, West Coast USA

25 Steps and Beyond: Collected Works
By Mike Garofalo

Flowers for February

 "The flowers of late winter and early spring occupy places in our hearts well out of proportion to their size." - Gertrude S. Wister

Right now, in our yard in Vancouver WA, we have two flowering plants: heather and helebores. The Rosemary has few blooms this year.

February - Quotations, Poems, Information, Facts

Flowers - Quotations, Poems, Information, Facts

Just Observing in Chrysanthemum Time

mums flowering, 

zinnias seeding--
   just wondering

“Plucking chrysanthemums along the West fence. 
Gazing in silence at the East Cascade foothills. 
The Canada geese flying in formation overhead, 
Through the soft valley air of morning―
In these things there is a deep meaning, 
But when we are about to express it, 
We suddenly forget the words.”  

- My rephrasing of lines from an unknown Chinese poet
from verses found in 'The Wisdom of Insecurity,’ by Alan Watts, 1951.  

A Gardener's Pictorial Memories

The Spirit of Gardening 

"I search and can't find myself. 
I belong in chrysanthemum time, 
Sharp in calla lilly elongations.
God made my soul
Into an ornamental thing."
-  Fernando Pessoa

The Last Second of Summer

The bare branches of an old shrub
Above its fallen scarlet leaves─
Emptiness or forms? 
Chrysanthemums in full bloom
Below clear blue skies─
Forms and emptiness? 

The first second of autumn,
The last second of summer─
Neither Forms nor Emptiness,
The spaces of past time,
The realms of dead minds;
Or, bereft of Space and Time,
The Singularity of the Big Bang Sublime. 
 
-  Mike Garofalo, Autumn Poems
   Mabon, 9/22/2020

   Reading the The Heart Sutra from the Buddhist scriptures.

"If all meanings could be adequately expressed in words, 

the arts of painting and music would not exist."
-  John Dewey

Pragmatism and American Philosophy

"A chrysanthemum by any other name would be easier to spell."
-  William J. Johnston

Haiku Poems by Mike Garofalo

Pulling Onions (Over 888 Quips and Sayings) by Mike Garofalo

Lusus: A Bud Sport, A Unique Offspring, A Transformation

"In botany, a sport or bud sport, traditionally called lusus, is a part of a plant that shows morphological differences from the rest of the plant. Sports may differ by foliage shape or color, flowers, fruit, or branch structure. The cause is generally thought to be a chance genetic mutation.

Sports with desirable characteristics are often propagated vegetatively to form new cultivars that retain the characteristics of the new morphology. Such selections are often prone to "reversion", meaning that part or all of the plant reverts to its original form. An example of a bud sport is the nectarine, at least some of which developed as a bud sport from peaches. Other common fruits resulting from a sport mutation are the red Anjou pear, the Ruby Red grapefruit, and the 'Pink Lemonade' lemon, which is a sport of the "Eureka" lemon."

In the photo below, foliage of a dwarf Alberta spruce (Picea glauca var. albertiana 'Conica'), with a branch showing reversion to the normal Alberta white spruce growth habit of larger leaves and longer internodes.

-  Wikipedia

Transformation

"Transformation isn’t sweet and bright. It’s a dark and murky, painful pushing. An unraveling of the untruths you’ve carried in your body. A practice in facing your own created demons. A complete uprooting, before becoming.”
-  Victoria Erickson

“Transformation literally means going beyond your form.”
-  Wayne Dyer

“Beautiful are those whose brokenness gives birth to transformation and wisdom.”
-  John Mark Green

Sozan's "Flowers or Seeds?"

 

The Fireplace Records, Chapter 18

Sozan's "Flowers or Seeds?"

Sozan was trying to decide between doing a painting of a branch of chrysanthemum blossoms or a display of various seeds.  He was drawn to the different sizes and colors of the seeds.  Seeds had a special meaning for him: Beginnings and Endings.  

Then, he recalled many old discussions about how differences and distinctions and preferences are rooted in how we think; and, how statements can be true or false at different times. He was a Zen man and a dedicated painter.  

While painting the seeds, his thoughts rambled:

Flowers and seeds both here and now, for the time being.
Flowers blooming then seeding.
Blooms beautiful, blooms not beautiful.
Seeds not beautiful, sees beautiful.
Flower seeds growing into plants with flowers blooming.
Flowers before seeds, seeds before flowers.
Flowers after seeds, seeds after flowers.
You must have seeds before you can get flowers.
You must have flowers before you can get seeds.
Fruit often comes in to cover the difference.
Wishes are like seeds, few growing.
  
And, on and on, for a few moments more,
then stopping thoughts, not thinking, just doing,
just painting.

A Student's Considerations:

What came first: the flowers or the seeds?
Some questions are poorly or incorrectly asked.
Understand the question before formulating an answer.
How does temporal specificity for statements effect truth?
Our very lives, our existence, our being-time,
depends on these flowers, fruits, and seeds.
Endless interconnections carrying on, carrying on.
Get to work, don't think and fret so much.  

mums flowering, 

zinnias seeding--
   just wondering

“Plucking chrysanthemums along the West fence. 
Gazing in silence at the East Cascade foothills. 
The Canada geese flying in formation overhead, 
Through the soft valley air of morning―
In these things there is a deep meaning, 
But when we are about to express it, 
We suddenly forget the words.”  

- My rephrasing of lines from an unknown Chinese poet
from verses found in 'The Wisdom of Insecurity,’ by Alan Watts, 1951

Related Links, Resources, References

Koans: 

Ito Sozan Painter (1884-1944) 

Just Observing in Chrysanthem Time

Dogen says, " Mind Here and Now is Buddha" [Soku Shin Ze Butsu #6 Book 1]

Time Movement Change Transformation Mortality

Process Philosophy

Refer to my Cloud Hands Blog Posts on the topic of Koans/Dialogues.

The Daodejing by Laozi    Best? 

Pulling Onions  Over 1,043 One-line Sayings by Mike Garofalo

Chinese Chan Buddhist and Taoist Stories and Koans

Taoism

Buddhism

Fireplaces, Stoves, Campfires, Kitchens, Pots, Firewood

Chinese Art

Tai Chi Chuan and Qigong

Meditation Methods

Zen Koan Books I Use

Koan Database Project

Brief Spiritual Lessons Database Project: Subject Indexes

Time in Dogen's Thoughts:

Each Moment is the Universe: Zen and the Way of Being Time. By Dainin Katagiri. Shambhala, 2008, 256 pages. VSCL, Paperback.

Being-Time: A Practitioner's Guide to Dogen's Shobogenzo Uji. By Shinshu Roberts. Wisdom 2018, 321 pages. VSCL, Kindle E-Book.

Treasury of the True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen's Shobo Genzo. Translated, edited, comments, notes by Kazuaki Tanahashi. Shambhala, 2013, 1280 pages, Hardcover.

Sparks: Brief Spiritual Lessons and Stories
Matches to Start a Kindling of Insight
May the Light from Your Inner Fireplace Help All Beings
Taoist, Chan Buddhist, Zen Buddhist, Philosophers
Catching Phrases, Inspiring Verses, Koans, Meditations
Indexing, Bibliography, Quotations, Notes, Resources
Research by Michael P. Garofalo

The Fireplace Records
By Michael P. Garofalo

A Gardener's Pictorial Memories

The Spirit of Gardening 

Backyard Details

All photographs, from yesterday and today,
were taken by Karen Garofalo in 2021
at our home in Vancouver, Washington.

"We cannot seek or attain health, wealth, learning, justice, or kindness in general.  Action is always specific, concrete, individualized, and unique."
-  Benjamin Jowett

"Science and psychoanalysis apart, the most profound development in thought since Nietzsche, as far as we are concerned, is the phenomenological approach to the world.  Mallarmé sought "words without wrinkles," Baudelaire cherished his minutes heureuses and Valéry his "small worlds of order," as we have seen: Checkhov concentrated on the "concrete individual" and preferred "small scale and practical answers," Gide though the "systematizing is denaturing, distorting and impoverishing."  For Oliver Wendell Holmes, "all the pleasure of life is in general ideas, but all the use of life is in specific solutions."  Wallace Stevens considered that we are "better satisfied in particulars."  Thomas Nagel put it in this way: "Particulars things can have a noncompetitive completeness which is transparent to all aspects of the self.  This also helps to explain what the experience of great beauty tends to unify the self: the object engages us immediately and totally in a way that makes distinctions among points of view irrelevant."  Or, as Robert Nozick, who counseled us to make ourselves "vehicles" for beauty, said: "this is what poets and artists bring us―the immense and unsuspected reality of a small thing.  Everything has its own patient entityhood."  George Levine call for "a profound attention to the details of this world."  
-  Peter Watson, "The Age of Atheists: How We Have Sought to Live Since the Death of God," p.536

"The idea of one overbearing truth is exhausted."  
- Thomas Mann, translated by James Wood  

"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind."
-  Albert Einstein

"To study the self is to forget the self.  To forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things."
-  Zen Master Dogen

"The more we understand individual things, the more we understand God."
-  Benedict De Spinoza

"God is in the details."
-  Mies Van Der Rohe

"After appreciating and understanding thousands of the details, a common variety God is really superfluous."
-  Mike Garofalo

"Caress the detail, the divine detail." 
-  Vladimir Nabokov

"Details are all there are."
-  Maezumi Roshi

"We think in generalities, but we live in details."
-  W.H. Auden

Gardening and Spirituality

Gardening and Religion

A Philosopher's Notebooks

Fecund, Powerful Beyond Measure

"Ask of Her, the mighty Mother.
Her reply puts this other
Question: What is Spring?-
Growth in every thing -

Flesh and fleece, fur and feather,
Grass and green world all together,
Star-eyed strawberry breasted
Throstle above Her nested

Cluster of bugle blue eggs thin
Forms and warms the life within,
And bird and blossom swell
In sod or sheath or shell."
-  Gerard Manly Hopkins, The May Magnificant, 1888 

"The festival of Floralia began around the year 258 BCE. Pagan Romans celebrated for six days, from April 27th to May 3rd, honouring their Goddess of Spring and of Flowers, Flora. Flora, known as Chloris to the Greeks, was a beautiful and serene Goddess, the Queen of Spring. She was married to Zephyrus, the west wind, and her temple is in Aventine.  Floralia was a time a great merriment and rejoicing in ancient Rome. During the festival, Romans would cast off their habitual white robes for more colourful garments, especially green ones. They would also deck themselves and everything around them in flowers then engage in all sorts of activities. There would be feasting, singing, dancing, and gaming. Offerings of milk and honey were made to the goddess Flora. Goats and hares meant to symbolize fertility were let loose in gardens and fields as protectors in Flora's honour. Singing filled the air and dancers stomped the ground to awaken nature and bring it back to life.  Ancient roman prostitutes in particular enjoyed this festival as they considered Flora their patron goddess. So Floralia was especially important to them. They participated in many events, from performing naked in the theatre to gladiatorial feats.  With the occupation of Rome in many countries of the western world at the time, especially in Britain and continental Europe, the festival of Floralia spread, with each country adding its own special touches to the festivities. And finally, Floralia became May Day. Many countries choose a May Queen to preside over the day's activities and children dance around the Maypole. Some collect flowers on May Eve for the next day and some couples even make love in their garden to ensure fertility. One belief that has been passed on is that one should wash one's face with the dew from May Day morn to obtain lasting beauty."
-  Linda Cassleman, Floralia  

The Month of May: Quotes, Saying, Poetry, Lore

"The force of Spring -
dancing,
forever moving,
mysterious,
fecund,
powerful beyond measure."
-  Michael Garofalo, Cuttings

Repost from 2016.

Moral Value of Flowers

"Who can estimate the elevating and refining influences and moral value of flowers with all their graceful forms, bewitching shades and combinations of colors and exquisitely varied perfumes? These silent influences are unconsciously felt even by those who do not appreciate them consciously and thus with better and still better fruits, nuts, grains, vegetables and flowers, will the earth be transformed, man's thought refined, and turned from the base destructive forces into nobler production. One which will lift him to high planes of action toward the happy day when the Creator of all this beautiful work is more acknowledged and loved, and where man shall offer his brother man, not bullets and bayonets, but richer grains, better fruit and fairer flowers from the bounty of this earth."
- Father George Schoener (1864 -1941)
  "The Importance and Fundamental Principles of Plant Breeding"


Flowers: Quotes, Sayings, Poems, Lore: http://www.gardendigest.com/flowers.htm

Entheogenic Use of Cannabis

 

Here is an excerpt from a longer article titled "The Entheogenic Use of Cannabis," from Wikipedia, 2020.  The agricultural history of marihuana growing and its uses all around the world is succinctly covered in the article.    

"Cannabis has served as an entheogen—a chemical substance used as an entheogen—a chemical substance used in religious or spiritual contexts^[1]—in the Indian subcontinent since the Vedic period dating back to approximately 1500 BCE, but perhaps as far back as 2000 BCE. Cannabis has been used by shamanic and pagan cultures to ponder deeply religious and philosophical subjects related to their tribe or society, to achieve a form of enlightenment, to unravel unknown facts and realms of the human mind and subconscious, and also as an aphrodisiac during rituals or orgies.^[2] There are several references in Greek mythology to a powerful drug that eliminated anguish and sorrow. Herodotus wrote about early ceremonial practices by the Scythians, thought to have occurred from the 5th to 2nd century BCE. Itinerant Hindu saints have used it in the Indian subcontinent for centuries.^[3] Over the last few decades hundreds of archaeological and anthropological items of evidence have come out of Mexican, Mayan and Aztec cultures that suggest cannabis, along with magic mushrooms (psilocybin), peyote (mescaline) and other psychoactive plants were used in cultural shamanic and religious rituals.^[2] Mexican-Indian communities occasionally use cannabis in religious ceremonies by leaving bundles of it on church altars to be consumed by the attendees.^[4]" 

Here was an October 2020 Facebook Post of mine:

I favor the Federal decriminalization of marihuana. In the State of Washington, since 2012, marihuana farms are prospering, tax revenues are growing from pot sales, investors in commodities are benefitting, law enforcement can focus on more important matters, people have more access to new CBD products, tourists are attracted to our state, and some folks can just enjoy a pleasant puff now and then purchased at a local pot shop. The Federal marihuana laws are unnecessary, costly, unjust, and out of date. I don’t smoke or drink now, but others can now purchase and use marihuana in Washington without being treated as a criminal. Many Democrats, Independents, and Libertarians support the Federal descheduling of cannabis.

https://potguide.com/washington/marijuana-laws/