Holy wow. I've been silent for so long. It's been nice. To listen. To learn. To read. To work. There is so much satisfaction in simplicity. However, in all this learning, I've got something to say. Where to start......

Lately I've been reading this book called How Yoga Works by Geshe Michael Roach and Christie McNally. Here:

    "Our minds have different seeds that ripen at the very same moment, but which organize the same colors and shapes into a pen.
    "And why does the Master say 'countless' seeds? Why look around you; gaze upon the incredible variety of things around you at any give moment, and all their details. Every little detail of the things you see around you has to be an image, aseperate image,organized by the mind which is forced to do so as more seeds ripen to organize each detail into itself. (184)
     "And so we must understand how the seeds work, and again this is all part of the deeper yoga that the Master has passed on to us so perfectly. And here he says, The storehouse is planted by the things we do II12B When he says 'storehouse' here, the Master is talking about the storehouse in our own minds: the place where the seeds stay until they ripen and compel our minds to organize other parts into an image, into a thing. And he answers that most important question--he tells us where the seeds come from by saying they are planted by the things we do. (188-189)

This has brought up many interesting revalations. And also visions. Like some sort of animated phenomenon, I see everything as if it is living, sprouting up out of it's "solid" image, by the perceptions I or my culture has attached to it. (No, I haven't taken up drugs).

And then I think about The Little Prince's morally didactic message, about the baobabs. St. Exupery's largest illustration is of an overgrown baobab that has consumed an entire planet. He says he drew it out of a sense of urgency---for the edification of children everywhere.

We must tend to our gardens everyday. Watch our every thought sprout from our mind, as consciously and consistantly as we can. Let them be (initially), and then determine whether the desires that arise are from good seeds, or bad seeds.

So I have been doing a lot of gardening lately. Both physical and metaphorical. And I've come to realize that bad seeds can often resemble good seeds when they sprout. A weed in my flower bed, at first resembles a flower. Also, desires that look much like hope or preference may turn into a greedy seed, anger leads the way to ahimsa, or even complacency. The minutest mindless actions we take sprout like weeds, and may strangle our best intentions before we know it. Or so it seems with me. I'm still observing and working all of this out really. Because I'm still new and wobbly, especially with 5,000 other distractions like teaching 150 students, graduation, AP audit, refinance, blah, blah.

But I'm happy. really. so blessed to be. here. in my garden.