New spring bloomed over, one more summer is about to end and we are meeting fall season soon. The last year was pretty much lost for me. Chronic pain is not something to laugh about. While there are numerous ways trying to deal with pain, there are times when absolutely nothing helps and makes one miserable. I spent this year reading a lot to create distraction from sometimes unbearable pain. I have read in average one book every two days, here and there even a book a day when sleep was avoiding me.
This was also a year when I didn’t plant anything, I just couldn’t move around. As you know while gardening is extremely therapeutic, it also requires physical strength. Therefore, I had only flowers and plants which just simply grow on their own and appear every year again like new. We had gooseberries, red currant berries, sage and thyme and all flowers did well. I am very grateful that this summer had good weather without any major heat waves and storms, therefore, I could spend a lot of time outdoors. Just thinking about all places where I will never be.
Looking forward to better times, and here’s is a recent poem:
To sit down and dream a bit
About all places where I cannot be
To sit down and breathe in the night air
The fragrance of blooms and see
All things which I will never in reality
To sit down and remember what never was
To paint the clouds and summer night
To sit down and cry internally
To capture the wind and have no pain
To make this my own eternity
To dream a bit, cry a bit, believe a bit
Breathe in the fragrance of grasses and blooms
Not even move, just sit in the middle of silence And understand it’s all that there ever will be
The door to a better future is not that far away. We just have to find it and courageously step in. Do we dare refuse from unnecessary buying things that get thrown out after a few days or weeks? Consumption is killing our planet, our health and is decreasing the odds for survival with just every passing year.
In our very materialistic world, there’s little space left for art and creativity, imagination and dreaming. Due to degradation of values, we are pretty much a society which has returned to bread and entertainment. Capitalism is most likely the wrong way to be. The more we produce and consume, the more we damage and destroy the nature and climate gets worse and less predictable. The nature fights back, and it’s about time we review what we do and don’t. However, is it possible to convince the consumer society that we don’t need lots of that we’ve put in our shopping cart?
The local Walmart and grocery chains have implemented practice of not giving customers any plastic shopping bags. Canada is discontinuing import and manufacture of plastic straws, utensils, plates and similar items. But look at the shelves. Everything is packed in plastic. Every smallest pack contains some or a lot of plastic. Look around in Walmart. There are so many plastic items, that discontinuing shopping bags isn’t even a drop in the ocean of plastic products and contamination of nature.
Here in Ontario, the Christmas season was very messy, numerous flights cancelled, even train couldn’t take, fallen trees stopped rail traffic. People stayed at the airport for days, not hours. We feel very happy we didn’t intend to travel this year. Well, we haven’t travelled for quite many years now. Nothing bad has happened because of that. Stay at home, enjoy cozy lights and tasty meals, silence at night, sparse winter light during the day. And it’s really fine.
We are lucky to live in a detached house surrounded by old majestic trees, lots of wild plants and grasses and there’s so much space outdoors that I can take a walk not even leaving my house. At the same time, it’s a town with everything close by. It’s great to live in a huge city, but then again living high up from the ground causes health problems. Add the air pollution and traffic jams, and it becomes quite tough way of living.
The landscape of my surroundings is quite eternal. Majestic trees disappearing in the distance by moonlight, by sunlight. By late evening, the sunset colors them pink and orange. Summer dresses everything up in fantastic greens and flowers have all colors of the rainbow. Nothing to complain about if you like I do, feel trees breathing and grasses whispering. Flowers just sing in soft voices. The fall comes, and every leaf burns with bright orange and red flames.
While we have more or fewer choices, it sometimes doesn’t work out in our favor. Well, I quite like this place, although, it has numerous shortages, and great things as well. Every year when we have to move is not a good year. Packing, moving and unpacking takes not only a few days. For me, it usually takes rather months. I am better organized now than I was in spring, but there are still unpacked boxes, naturally so.
The door to a better future and life is not that far away. It’s still within our reach, or so we believe. We’ve got to stop admiring those with thousand pairs of shoes, but start rather figuring out how everything can be recycled, refurbished, repurposed and reused. It’s also so that one can sleep only in one bed at a time, eat one meal and wear one outfit at one particular moment. The essence of our existence has been so far – grab more, get more, stack up more, have more of anything. Will it be possible to turn the reality around and make people try living with what’s necessary? That might take decades if at all.
I hope you have nature around you or at least, access to it. It’s a great cure for all kinds of illnesses. Fresh air, home-grown produce, trees for shade, path for walking. I see this world as an endless painting. I choose not to notice what doesn’t fit in it. Just for now, for a few days, let it be a flawless world with picturesque views and beauty which lives in every smallest detail of natural surroundings.
I wish everybody a saturated, successful and pleasant year! Thanks very much to all of you who commented, liked and re-blogged. All the best to each of you and everybody who reads!
October is full of mysteries, secrets and wisdom. The October wisdom comes from centuries surviving the unpleasant silence of nature, from always winning the light back in spring. October is a month of poets and philosophers – what else can make us think so deeply about things which go away, but return again and again? In the Northern hemisphere, October becomes our sunlight preserve, the last colorful warmth before we wake up with November chill.
October walk
We could be walking endlessly
In peaceful sunlight
Submerging ourselves
In the sparkling gold of falling leaves,
Breathing fall fragrance and colorful air.
We could be walking endlessly
In this stunning brightness
Under the transparent, distant sky.
Shadow obediently marching behind.
If it wasn’t for darkness and freezing nights.
If it wasn’t this place where we are now.
What about the garden?
It is going to sleep. Blooming plants are stuffed indoors, not that there’s enough space, but they will survive. About half a year is all it takes, but they’re resilient just like we must be. I still have tomatoes, parsley, dill, kale, green onions, chives, last sweet peppers and basil. When the temperature drops below zero Celsius, only parsley and kale will be available for a while. Nature needs a break, plants are done for now, and hopefully, the winter is mild.
What about us?
We wrap ourselves up and hide indoors, too. Thankfully, there are soothing days when the sun sends us warming rays. We pray there’s peace on the Earth. Is it likely? Probably not soon, but at some point, we must come to our senses. Even those who misuse power. The weather has become quite unpredictable, but we cannot complain too much. Most storms passed us so far. Candle time is coming, more self-exploration, more art creation, although, the light is not sufficient.
Balance
All is good enough for now. It can always be better; it can always be worse. It’s nice to be in the middle of the neutral grey, not giving in into black, not being obsessed with only white. Balance is about that: the neutral middle. Let’s hope we get more sunlight this October here, in the small town in Ontario. Frosts are ahead, but the colors will last for a while yet.
Inese Poga Life School 