Tag Archives: spring

Lenten love and lettuces.

Lent, love, , ,

For the letter “L”, Lent is a natural choice of subject, considering the season we Orthodox are in. This year Pascha or “Greek Easter” is five weeks after Western Easter, so we are still in preparation. Everything that we experience or do is placed in the context of our efforts to draw close to Christ and to be ready for the glorious celebration of His Resurrection. If I don’t see that connection on my own, someone around me is sure to say, upon hearing that I’m sick, or my car broke down, or about any number of news items, failings or challenges, “Ah, well, it’s Lent!”P1030845(2)

Sloughing off the unnecessary, becoming more like Mary than Martha, letting go, focusing on the eternal things and soaking up the encouragement of our mother the Church through the heart-sustaining services of this period of the calendar — these are some of the things we try to work on.

When on April Fool’s Day my computer’s hard drive failed, I lost several months’ worth of data and many hours of work that I have to do over, including hundreds of photos and I don’t know what else, because somehow my backup program had also failed since December. My Computer Guy was more distressed than I was; I realized deep down that this loss was of nothing essential to my life. I said something like that to him, mentioning Lent, and he remarked lightly that my attitude inspired him to consider what sort of sacrifices he himself ought to be making. “Oh, no,” I wanted to say, “It’s not about making sacrifices!” But exactly what it is about, I wasn’t prepared to expound. I do know that I did not choose to give up a big chunk of visual and literary records.Christ washing feet of disciples

What Lent is about can be summed up in this prayer that we pray hundreds of times throughout the weeks and the services. It doesn’t say anything about sacrifice or even about food.

The Lenten Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian

 O Lord and Master of my life!
Take from me the spirit of sloth, faint-heartedness,
lust of power, and idle talk.
But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility,
patience, and love to Thy servant.
Yea, O Lord and King!
Grant me to see my own errors
and not to judge my brother;

for blessed art Thou unto ages of ages. Amen.

And though to be truthful, there is mention of sacrifice when we come together, it’s in the moving hymn we sing on our knees at one of the Lenten services:

Let my prayer arise in Thy sight as incense,
And the lifting up of my hands

As an evening sacrifice.

I happen to be reading a book that seems very Lenten in its mood and themes. This novel by Eugene Vodolazkin, Laurus, is filling my mind so much the last few weeks, I originally planned to dedicate the whole of “L” to it, even though I’m still in the middle of the book. It’s about the Middle Ages, a holy fool, and kairos. The main character demonstrates the kind of self-emptying that results in making space for God.Image result for laurus

His motivation for asceticism is love for someone for whom he wants to pray, and he does not want to be distracted by being too comfortable. Eventually he comes to feel out of touch with his body, almost insensible to its condition, and free. You might think that such a person would also be oblivious to the natural world around him, but Arseny seems to be more intimate with the creation and appreciative of its beauty than the average person. Perhaps the Holy Spirit allows him to see and interact with things more directly and clearly than we who only have our natural senses.gl lettuce IMG_2014

Speaking of Nature, I am trying to cooperate with her and grow some vegetables. On Friday I set out some little lettuces and also some kale and leeks. The lettuce is of two varieties of Romaine: Forellenschluss (which I probably bought for its name that is so fun to say) is the speckled kind on the left in the photo; it’s an heirloom variety from Austria. The plain green is a heat-resistant lettuce from Israel and is named Jericho.

That Lenten prayer is useful all through the day, and everywhere we go. I feel the spirit of love in regard to my garden, but I need the spirit of patience. I pray the Lord takes from me the lust of power, but I don’t expect it will happen as quickly as I lost all those digital photos.

Did you know that “the English word Lent is a shortened form of the Old English word len(c)ten, meaning ‘spring season'”? Whatever hemisphere we live in, we can with God’s help tend our hearts, and make this season the springtime of our soul. 

Water music for workers and for hospitality.

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gl P1030388 plum bud
plum

Last week I felt such relief from having a load lifted from my mind, I was immediately energized to prune the plum trees. These are the Elephant Heart plums that I had to buy two of after all. You might remember that I polled the neighbors to see if anyone had a Santa Rosa plum or an Elephant Heart to be the pollinator for mine. Several did, but then I found out that the helper tree would have to be within 50-100 feet of whatever I planted in my space. That is, next door. Which they weren’t.

A pruned tree might not be a lovely thing if it were not demonstrating a great success to the pruner, that of surmounting my fears and inadequacies and ignorance and getting it accomplished. Landscape Lady had given me some tips, and then I rgl P1030363 pruned plumead quite a bit online and printed off some pictures and advice about how many inches between scaffold branches and what percentage of the length of the branch to cut off, etc. — things I don’t already know from pruning ornamentals.

The relief I felt was over the completion of my fountain project. This was another story that was in process when I thought it was done, because the first fountain was found to be defective. The finish peeled off in big flakes before it had been here two months. The tasks of getting my money back and getting it taken away was hard enough, and then the shopping for a new one… I needed the help of two friends two days in a row to find what I wanted, and praise the Lord it was one I could buy right there, and have it set up within a few days. gl P1030392 hospitality

Now we garden workers and garden sitters can enjoy the accompaniment of the fountain song again. And I think I like this new one better than the first. I learned that the pineapple is a symbol of hospitality, which made me happy, because I want my new garden to be a place where I can be hospitable to my friends, both human and animal. If you look closely you can see the bell of bird seed on a pole in the distance behind the fountain, a gift to the birds from Kit.

gl P1030389 new succulent

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Kit is also pruning, the wisteria, right at this moment while the warm air and the water music come in the open windows to where I am typing. I told her to prune it hard, that she couldn’t kill it, and she climbed up on the arbor and has given it a drastic haircut. Maybe the towhees won’t think us very hospitable for taking away a nice platform for their nests.

 

The last few days have been downright balmy. So when I finished pruning I did more things, like planting a succulent and a thyme plant, and weeding in the front yard. And taking pictures of buds.

gl P1030396 thyme

gl P1030375 snowball bud

I dearly love the viburnum buds that come out the end of January, two-by-two along their gracefully curving stems. Even the dwarf pomegranate bushes have buds, which I was not sure about when I first saw them last week. I bent down to trim the ends of the tangly branches, and saw red dots that looked like mites, they were so tiny and bright; now they are easier to recognize for what they are, bold upspringings of pomegranate life. I have to use my hand as a background in order to get the camera to focus.gl P1030378 pom buds

This season when sprouts come up and out of everywhere — I never can get used to it! I will have to write about it every year.

gl P1030355 fountain

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This week I made another bold move: to phone the “Oriental Gardener” who leaves flyers around the neighborhood from time to time advertising his services. I got a bid from him for pruning the osmanthus at the front of the house. It has dead wood from drought damage, and needs to be reduced in size. He will do it tomorrow, so I took a Before picture this afternoon.

 

 

 

Housemate Susan told me that she used some kale from the front yard recently, and that pleased me very much, because I have not eaten one leaf of all the greens I planted last fall. While I was waiting for the Oriental Gardener to come by I picked my own bowlful of collards and Swiss chard and am looking forward to a good mess of greens real soon.

gl P1030400

Death and Life in Springtime

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Dichelostemma capitatum (Blue Dicks)

Death is working in all of us. Last week death, by means of cancer, parted me from my husband, and I am now a widow. But the separation is not absolute, because Mr. Glad may be more alive than ever, to which truth the scriptures testify by the words of Christ Himself, “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” Nor will he and I be separated for long; we will meet in the Resurrection:

P1120755 buttercups
buttercups

 

 

For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words. (I Thessalonians)

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blue-eyed grass

I do comfort and console myself with these realities, while feeling the equally real tearing apart of me and my “other half,” our souls and bodies having been intertwined like a ball of string that is really two cords so closely tangled you can’t identify which strand you are seeing in any part of the thing. If one string is pulled out of the ball, just how misshapen and odd will it be? That’s what I don’t know, and what scares me.

yellow&white flwr crane ck 3-29-15
Common Meadowfoam

As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more. But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children’s children…

Every member of our family has received huge amounts of grace and joy during the last weeks, and especially in the days leading up to the funeral, which was last Saturday. One friend remarked how sweet it is to die in springtime, the season of new beginnings.crane creek poppies 3-29-15

On Sunday afternoon two daughters took me up into the hills for a walk among the oaks with their tiny new leaves, and to see the first wildflowers coming out. It was a stroll, not a hike, because all of us were quite spent from all the emotion and the activity. And one of us, daughter Pippin, was 9+ months pregnant, so we weren’t attempting a fitness walk.

P1120752 oak leaves
oak leaves

I took a lot of pictures, falling easily back into my old self’s delight in seeing the glories of Creation and making memories of them to prolong the experience. We saw at least two flowers that even Pippin didn’t know the names of; I will try to come back later and tell you, if I find out what they are.

Upon our return to the house the dear baby, whether on his own or by the promptings of his heavenly Father I don’t know, decided the time was right to make his arrival. Someone noted that he is an obedient child from the start, waiting until his parents had laid his grandfather to rest before taking center stage himself. That evening we welcomed a new man-child into the family, whom I will call Jamie.G w J blog

Jamie also showed love to his grandmother by being born in this county instead of waiting one more day until he would have been back in his home town. Not only I, but his two aunties were able to be present when he came swiftly into the light and into our arms. Among other good names, he was given that of his grandfather whom he had just missed in passing.

It’s all too wonderful and mysterious and splendid, don’t you think? It’s Springtime.