embrace impermanence

“No matter what is happening, whenever we see the inevitability of change, the ordinary, or even oppressive, facts of our lives can become alive with prospect. We see that a self-image we’ve been holding doesn’t need to define us forever, the next step is not the last step, what life was is not what it is now, and certainly not what it might yet be.”

—Sharon Salzberg, Faith: Trusting your own deepest experience

It’s a houseplant that I first got when I was in college, many years ago. I won’t say how many years ago, but it was back in the days when macrame plant hangers were the “in” thing, and I made a macrame hanger for my plant. It is a tradescantia, commonly known as a “wandering jew.” And it has wandered with me all this time, a miracle of survival. (I may even still have the macrame plant hanger around here somewhere, but I haven’t seen it in a while.)

Actually, the original plant is long gone, but the cuttings easily root in a glass of water, and so periodically the plant has been completely recreated from a few cuttings.

When I first moved to Augusta, my plant grew very large because of all the sun here. About 3 years ago, I put it out on the porch in the summertime, and it grew even larger, and bloomed for the first time. I had way too much of it, so in the fall, I threw a lot of it outside in the dirt beside the garage door. There, it rooted and survived through the winter. In the meantime, my indoor plant did not survive, and even the cuttings in my windowsill didn’t make it.

But today, while I was outside potting my flowers, I found a few little sprouts still surviving in the ground. I dug them up and potted them and put them back out on my porch. We’ll see what happens. :)

...the Flylady has changed her home page, too. Yesterday, 43 Things changed, and today, Flylady.net. More change.

Actually, I kind of like the new flylady home page. It is less cluttered.

...by embracing today’s changes to 43 Things. I’m sure I’ll be used to the new format before too long.

...this afternoon. An opportunity to meditate upon and attempt to embrace impermanence.

A fragment of poetry that had been haunting me lately. I found it sometime in the past week, in one of my meditation books. It is all about embracing impermanence:

We would rather be ruined than changed,
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die.
^{by W. H. Auden}

7 weeks ago I wrote about how my oldest cat was losing weight and looking poorly. I was already grieving her loss. Now she seems to have re-gained her appetite and the weight that she lost, and her coat looks much healthier. I’ve spent lots of time with her lately, and I think that’s good for her and for me too. Pet therapy is a good thing.

African Violet, Allium, Armeria, Aster, Azalea, Bindweed, Bleeding Heart, Carnation, Cherry, Chives, Colchium, Columbine, Cosmos, Crabapple, Cranesbill Geranium, Clematis, Cleome, Clover, Crown Vetch, Dogwood, Fleabane, Foxglove, Fuchia, Geranium, Heather, Hibiscus, Honeysuckle, Hydrangea, Impatiens, Joe-Pye Weed, Larkspur, Lilac, Lythrum, Malva, Maple leaves, Marjoram, Peach, Petunia, Phygosteria, Poppy, Prunus buds, Redbud, Rhododendron, Rose, Scilla, Smartweed, Snapdragon, Spirea, Wax Flower, Wiegelia, Xeranthemum.

This was the list of all the flowers (& weed blossoms & leaves) that I had sometimes found, sometimes grown, and sometimes been given; identified; pressed; stored; and used for making pictures and cards with pink tones. I can see most of them in my mind’s eye, and remember where I collected them, and things that I made with them.

My Sorrow, when she’s here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She’s glad the birds are gone away,
She’s glad her simple worsted grey
Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief.
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
—Robert Frost