finding balance

I need to work on the balance in my life. It's a lesson I'd rather not have to learn again. Therefore I plan to avoid all social media, well, not blogs, til Monday. No FB, no Twitter. I'm going to work outside. I'm going to get my hands in the dirt. I'm going to go out with my sister and explore Old Town Rosenberg. I'm going to finish the model I started and didn't finish because all the previous stuff came out of the kiln. I'm going to do what I can do to nurture the earth, enjoy a relationship, and bring beauty into the world. I have to detach and remember the divine flame within, that flame that inhabits all of creation and makes us one even if I don't care for this particular expression of the TATI* that I find myself in. However, don't think that this signals acceptance. No no. As my friend Reya says, this is a marathon, not a sprint. We have years of resistance ahead of us and it won't do to get burned out early. There is nothing I can do to prevent anything that will happen in the next four days.

I've been engaging in a lot of physical activity this week and last but as often as not I'm still awake 2 or 3 or 4 hours a night. Consequently I've been sleeping late, not rising until about 8:30. Since it seems to be spring here I've been cutting back all the dead foliage from the hard freeze. Ginger, yellow bells, confederate rose, morning glory bush, jasmine, Philippine violet, firecracker bush, and lantana one day, the century plant and the roses the next. 

I also finally dug up one of the large clumps of yellow butterfly iris that was crowding out two of the roses. That took me well over an hour and I cracked the handle of my shovel doing it. I still need to dig the other one up as well but they both got severe haircuts. 

remember this from last April?

it looks like this now

There are piles of debris everywhere, thorny stacks of rose cuttings, a trail of dead foliage and branches as I worked my way around the yard.

one of many

The azaleas will no longer be constrained and are starting to bloom about 6 weeks early. The red shouldered hawks are soaring in the sky calling for mates. The mosquito hawks are coming out. The birds are all chirpy. A woodpecker is hammering away at some piece of metal outside showing off for the girls and a wren is fussing at the cat every time she goes out. All kinds of new and regenerative growth is coming out. And it is barely February.

I harvested two big heads of broccoli last Sunday and made broccoli cheese soup, some for now and some for the freezer. I need to get the raised beds in order and build a new one since we plan to plant more food this year. And I got the satsuma orange planted.

The weather has been warm and dry all week, dry as in no rain but also as in not humid, and last week as well though today is cooler and overcast and wet and it's supposed to rain today. 

Perhaps I'll update my website today.

*The All That Is