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| February 2007 I wake to the sounds of red-tail hawks calling to each other overhead. As I laze through my morning Reiki, I watch out the tent windows as two of them spiral and soar in thermal updrafts. Once in the cottage, I hear unfamiliar whistling amidst the bird chatter just outside my French doors. When I investigate, I see a flock of cedar waxwings boisterously perched on the naked branches of a tree just over the fence. Their pale browns and yellows, black eye masks and telltale crown crests are radiant and gorgeous in the sunlight. Such a delightful welcome to my morning. The chill days and the nights of hard frost have passed into our more moderate and usual winter weather. My garden, full of sadly drooping browned leaves, has been patiently waiting for me to continue clearing away the deadened parts of everything. It's time, too, for repotting all my rose bushes as well as my now frost-diminished jade tree and asparagus fern. The jade and fern have each survived more than 20 years of occasional killing frosts. I marvel at their capacity to revive and flourish each time. So, too, the tree that I call my beanstalk: a now huge and once again denuded split-leaf philodendron that started life in my world as a somewhat pathetic house plant some 20 odd years ago. Alternately pruned back by blazing summer suns and winter frosts, it goes from naked trunk to lavish fullness in an eye-blink over and over again. These three remind me always of the extraordinary resilience of living beings, of how over and over again we can rise from the ashes of what we used to be. Inside the cottage there's a corn cane plant that's been in my life since 1983. A once small houseplant that grew into a huge tree, it accidentally got decapitated when I moved this last time. I set the top of it in water to see if it might grow some new roots. When it did, I repotted it in soil. Now, it's growing its way back into a tree again. Of course, there've been endless other houseplants that have come and gone over the years. It's a treat to have some that seem to go on and on. My plants, my masks and my kitty are company and comfort in my hermitage. They all have big personalities and presences. It's been both a busy and a quiet month. Busy in that so many of the women who work with me have-these past few weeks-been dealing with so much major challenge and change in their lives and been calling in for extra sessions. Whenever I see these rashes of change happening, I wonder if there's something significant going on in the stars/planets. Especially when my chiropractor is finding the same to be true amongst her clients. I'm forever grateful that most often I've been ahead of the wave, that I've gone through my own time of big challenge or change and come out the other side just before it starts to move through my clients' lives. (A good thing, this timing!) In my own personal world, things this month have been slow and quiet and gentle. The only bumpiness was a trip to Florida to be with my sister and dad for another of our quarterly three-day weekends. During this visit, our step-mom went north to meet with her son and daughter to see-and sign onto the waiting list for-a senior community in Maryland. The place is near to her daughter and to three of my cousins (who especially adore my dad). The decimation-by death, illness, incapacitation or relocation-of my parents' support system, my dad's increasing needs for care and my step-mom's diminishing energy for all the tasks that have now fallen upon her shoulders, all make such a move necessary. Still, it's sure to be a huge and challenging feat for them, the work of adjusting to a totally new environment, new doctors, new friends and new routines at almost 91 and 88. My dad knows they have to go but hates the idea of leaving what's been his beloved home for 34 years. In the three months since our last visit my dad has slipped further both mentally and physically. He struggles mightily with feelings of embarrassment and humiliation over his increasing physical incapacities despite the fact that he and my step-mom figure out creative ways to handle the changes. And, for the first time, we could see that he has begun to notice his failing short-term memory. It was heart wrenching to see that. Still, he remains absolutely clear and outspoken about preferring all this to the “alternative.” He spends much of his time these days spacing out. Only the occasional tennis tournament or ice-skating trial on TV captivates his interest. And, while he clearly enjoys being around visiting family, he mostly observes silently while others are interacting; it's something he's done all his life. When I ask him what it is that he thinks about when he's off inside himself, he tells me, “It's just blank in there.” He comes by this inner stillness quite naturally-no need for meditation training here! He's been a sweet, loving, calm, peaceful, quiet person all of his life. He's somehow conveyed to all of us-in mostly non-verbal ways-a capacity for great compassion and emotional sensitivity. Sometimes lately, as I find myself wanting to try to get to know more of him before his mind slips further away, this life-long inarticulateness of his gets particularly daunting. I feel frustrated and irritated both with him and with myself: with him for being so non-verbal, with myself for wanting from him something he does not have to give. Then, with sadness, I give up the seeking; let go of a niggling sense that perhaps I've made a lot of him up by filling in the blanks left by the absence of more verbal content. Still, I love him as I always have and I'm grateful for the enduring presence of his unconditional (if mostly inarticulate) loving. Though he couldn't ever shield either himself or me from my mother's wrath, his love always gave me a sense that I was indeed a lovable being despite the ways her criticisms constantly flayed and undermined me. This was and is enough, even as some part of me had of late been wanting more content or substance from him. After writing this much some days ago, I suddenly found my way into the gardening and yard work that's been waiting for me to be inspired to dig into it all. After most of a lifetime of being tyrannized by my endless to-do lists, I've mellowed into doing things only when the spirit moves me to them. I've finally gotten adept at not getting caught in the web of shoulds, of needing to finish things before I'm allowed to have my permission to rest or play or read or nap. I live most days now in a world of dessert, rewards and rest first, during and after. Other days, I'm captivated by intense sieges of doing things. Doing things only when I'm moved to do them delights me-the sieges feel like high play, intense yet relaxing and joyful. I've been carried away several days this unplugged week by the work/play of pruning and hauling and planting and repotting, mixing potting soil with worm castings and vermiculite in batches of a dozen two-gallon buckets at a time. I get so lost in the process, moving slowly in baby steps, then stopping from time to time for tea and sitting down in the middle of it to simply bask in the unfolding and rebirth. Up to my elbows in the dirt, fondling the root balls of my pot bound plants as I haul them into new larger homes, I'm ecstatic. I'm fascinated and thrilled to discover the teeming life in each of the root balls: earthworms, red worms, millipedes and all manner of exotic insects busily working away in these mini-ecosystems feeding and being fed by the earth that's lived in these pots. It all feels wondrous and holy. Every one looks so happy in their new homes: the roses are flush with the red of new leaves, the first daffodils open out of their buds, green aliveness sprouts at the base of many of the frost decimated plants. Spring is happening here in my garden. Around town, too, as the mauve and white of dogwood blossoms in so many gardens that I pass as I walk to and from our one block downtown. In my little meadow the wild grasses return and the leafy starts that will blossom later into California poppies. And, the frogs and crickets are showing up again. Today I was creeping around redoing a lot of the drip irrigation lines to fit the new configuration of larger pots, to make some of the older set-ups more efficient and to replace clogged drippers/sprayers here and there. As the light was disappearing in a most spectacular sunset, I finally got to rubbing lemon oil into the few bits of teak outside furniture that have been starving for attention for ages. I feel full, replete tonight: as if I've been at a magical banquet all day. The garden is such sweet comfort to me. I may have to keep coping with the helplessness of not being able to do much to ease or change what my parents are each and both having to face. But, I can help my green friends to find what they need to keep growing and flourishing. Feeding my spirit in the garden brings me the groundedness and inner peace I need in order to be able to be available for whatever help my folks need from me in these changing and difficult times. 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