In other news…
☽ I recently spent the afternoon with a dear friend volunteering on a flower farm. We pulled weeds from flowerbeds and snipped marigold blossoms for garlands. We laughed and sweat and marveled. We left with a mountain of flowers piled in the back of the car, petals blowing out the windows as we drove home. If an afternoon full of flowers and frogs (see photo below) and hands in the earth sounds like your cup of tea, I highly recommend looking into volunteering at your local flower farms. If you're in the Portland area,
Island Farm Studio is the sweetest spot. It's a woman-run, five-acre flower farm where they offer classes and bouquet subscriptions and a host of other good things.
☽ There were so many moments to savor on flower farm day. I wrote some of them down in my sensory capture log (the everyday magic log I shared w/ you a while back. If you need a copy let me know!). Other things I've savored this month:
the sweetness (literally and figuratively) of a pecan pie my neighbor baked for me, the softness and cedary-sage pungency of my garden mugwort, the way one of my favorite humans delighted in a museum exhibit we visited together.
This simple practice of intentionally savoring is changing my life in astonishing and wonderfully profound ways. The reasons why savoring - and the supportive practices of helping and gratitude - can be so transformative were
recently discussed by Tara Brach on her podcast. If you listen to the episode and want to chat about it, please let me know!
☽ And lastly, a poem I've been reading and rereading from the beloved Mary Oliver. I have long lived the first four stanzas of this poem. It's only recently I've begun to know - really and truly know - the last three lines. The freedom of that knowing makes me tear up just thinking about it. If you're worried, I hope you can find that knowing, too. I think savoring is playing a significant part in that shift for me.
I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not how shall
I correct it?
Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?
Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless.
Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?
Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And I gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.
If ever there were a person who savored and taught/teaches the art of embodied presence in how she lived and in her poetry, it was Mary Oliver. Thank goodness she shared herself with the world.
What have you been savoring recently?
