Montclair Garden Visit

Friends own an historic home on a double lot in Montclair. We took a few photos to show the abundance and variety after years of care and evolving garden design.

This is for the birds. Well ... yes.

Lady Liberty is known to hang out there.

You want a bust of Shakespeare? How many? A statue of the BVM? 

They're preparing for a house sale.

Not actual garden animals. It is Montclair, after all.

A Blue Heron has been spotted mornings sampling the fish in this pond. 

Garden design by Mr. Jerry Harmyk ...

Next Steps

When my younger daughter was a little girl, I was explaining to her about numbers. How they just go on and on. Never ending.

She came back to me one day with, "Daddy, I love you 'til the numbers stop."

I was obviously very impressed with her powers of abstraction. And, metaphor. And, creative thinking.

Now, that little girl is grown. With children of her own. And, the many challenges.

Well, the numbers do in fact stop. 

The question is ... then what?

I've been investigating that question, and can say this ... that's were Love really begins.

A Garden in the Garden State

In our town Montclair, New Jersey, there are so many beautiful homes, with so many lovely plantings. 

One, however, stood out. 

Recently we stopped to take some photos of the flower spectacular in the front of a home we often drive past.

Turns out the owner/gardener recognized his garden from a post we made in a local Montclair Facebook group. 

And, we were invited to see the back yard. 

I expected to see just some more of the same as the front. 

What a surprise. A 17 year spectacular work in progress. Flowers, bushes, vines, trees, vegetables. Mushrooms. Bees. Butterflies. Around 650 pounds of vegetables annually. A Secret Garden to spend some tranquil solitude. A Buddha. And, the gracious gardener. Went home with a sampling of right off the vine Tomatoes. 

Many thanks, Mr. Jose German-Gomez ...

Farmers Market 2017 Edition

Farmers Market 2017 Edition

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My First Miracle

I'm sure that there were many, many more before that one, just that one was one I recognized as miraculous.

One evening going from my home in Brooklyn to a party in Manhattan I was driving north on the East Side Highway. Very low on gas. Very. Feeling anxious. I got off the highway in a very isolated spot somewhere around Delancey Street, way east. The locale was dark and desolate. Empty. Scary place to be alone at night. Even more anxious. 

Fortunately I found a gas station open. After gassing up and back on the highway I noticed I was still anxious. And, quickly realized that there was no longer any reason to feel that way. Immediately, the anxiety lifted. I found myself profoundly present, in the moment. Free.

The party was in a walk up on the upper east side. Climbing the stairs I noticed the hostess had sprinkled rainbow glitter on the steps leading to her apartment. Blew my mind. 

At the party there were a lot of cool people. Studio 54 habitués. Beautiful people. I noticed a handsome fellow there dancing with abandon and joy. He glowed. I met him and said I would like to be more like him. He asked me why not. I said I was afraid. You know that saying, "You can be happy, but not too happy". 

When I confided to him my fear, he said something memorable. It sticks with me today. "Oh, fear. That old thing!"

Not Everyone is Your Customer

Sample photo, not actual persons discussed in this post.

Yesterday at the supermarket checkout the young man bagging our groceries was also carrying on a detailed conversation with the bagger next to him. At one point he spotted some friends and turned away from his talk to say hello.

The cashier, besides ringing up our purchases, was also paying attention to the conversation at his bagging station.

I had to comment. My tactful choice was to ask, "Do you know about Zen?"

"No." I noticed the lack of intellectual curiosity.

I told the fellow Zen was about learning to do one thing at a time. And, only one thing. He proudly retorted that he was a multi-tasker. Imagine that! Some high school kid already had the world by the balls. BTW ... If you are proud to be a multi-tasker, stop reading this. It's not for you.

I offered that Zen was a great mental discipline. And asked if he would look into it.

"No. I'm a multi-tasker."

You can't fight ignorance. I complimented him on his honesty.

He came back with, "That's what I am ... honest."

As I began to leave that scene, the fellow at the next checkout asked me, "What is Sen?" I said, "It's called Zen, Z-E-N. It's an ancient discipline. Look into it."

There's hope.

But, if you know Zen ... there's no such thing as hope.

It's all right here, right now, baby.

Knock wood. I mean that literally. Tap something. Now! Do it!

That's some Zen for YOU!

"We do not know what love is ...

"In the space which thought creates around itself there is no love. This space divides man from man, and in it is all the becoming, the battle of life, the agony and fear. 

"Meditation is the ending of this space, the ending of the me. 

"Then relationship has quite a different meaning, for in that space which is not made by thought, the other does not exist, for you do not exist. 

"Meditation then is not the pursuit of some vision, however sanctified by tradition. Rather it is the endless space where thought cannot enter. 

"To us, the little space made by thought around itself, which is the me, is extremely important; for this is all the mind knows, identifying itself with everything that is in that space. And the fear of not being is born in that space. 

"But in meditation, when this is understood, the mind can enter into a dimension of space where action is inaction. We do not know what love is, for in the space made by thought around itself as the me, love is the conflict of the me and the not-me. This conflict, this torture, is not love. Thought is the very denial of love, and it cannot enter into that space where the me is not. 

"In that space is the benediction which man seeks and cannot find. He seeks it within the frontiers of thought, and thought destroys the ecstasy of this benediction."

Jiddu Krishnamurti
Meditations 1969

My dad would make an annual trek from Detroit to Toledo, just over the Michigan-Ohio border, to give us kids a chance to buy Fourth of July fireworks with our savings.

A fireworks store to a young boy is as close to pornography as his innocent young mind can go. Bright paper packages with hundreds of carefully grouped firecrackers with even brighter and fantastical labels.

Bottle rockets by the gross. Cherry Bombs and Hammerheads/M80s, the heavy duty standards; each one a small bit of dyn-O-mite. BLAM! For those lighter moments, Lady Fingers. And, snap caps that you threw to the ground for an explosion whenever the circumstances indicated.

What you like as a kid can stay in your blood. 

Once on a trip out West not that long ago we stopped by a fireworks roadside stand in Wyoming. It was October. I asked how come they were selling fireworks that time of year? The answer: "Fireworks are for any time you want to celebrate life." Now, there's a salesman for you!

That Kamala Harris:

The fact that Harris is 1) Female, 2) Black, and 3) new to the Senate (i.e., easy target of senior Senator White Male privilege) seems to guarantee to those already in her boat that she is beyond criticism, and on the correct side of history. 

It also plays well if you've already decided that Sessions is a bum that deserves perp scumbag style treatment. I do support intensive, rigorous investigation. She came off as just another politician playing to her base. We'll certainly now be seeing more of Senator Harris. 

[So tell us Senator Harris, are you still beating your wife? YES or NO! Answer the question! YES or NO!]

More, to seal my point: CLICK ... 

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/448672/kamala-harris-rude-bullying-victimized-future-american-politics

Joyful Recognition: 

Discovery of a Shechen Monk’s Reincarnation

Earlier this year Tsultrim Tarchen, a five-year old boy from Silambi, Mongar (Eastern Bhutan) went with his father, Sangay Letho and mother, Sangay Zangmo, to attend the Rinchen Terdzo empowerments being bestowed by Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche at Takila in Northern Bhutan.

When the boy saw some of the monks from Shechen Monastery, his behaviour amazed everyone who witnessed it. Based on his repeated statements it appeared that he must be the reincarnation of a monk from Shechen Monastery, called Tamdrin (ordained name Jigme Sherab).

Tamdrin had died tragically on the 27th of December 2006, from lack of oxygen due to a stove left burning in his room. The little boy’s parents said that at a very young age he spoke of fire and smoke and his monastery friends to his father, but the family didn’t pay much heed to his stories.

There are many things that the boy said and did to confirm his previous life. One moving example was when he saw a particular monk from Shechen he said, “Oh, I admitted you to the monastery, where is the other one?” It turns out that Tamdrin had personally admitted this monk to Shechen, along with another child. The parents of the late monk, Tamdrin, came to meet the little boy. When he saw his parents from his previous life, he became very shy and hid, peeping at them from behind a door. They left some gifts for him and when they left, he cried and said “my father and mother have gone.”

Rabjam Rinpoche said:

“When he came to see me, he stayed in his previous parents house and when he was there he asked me where his mala was, where his radio was, and many things like that.”

Tsultrim Tarchen and Tamdrin Rinpoche expressed his happiness at seeing this child, who had been one of his monks. In the case of the recognition of a tulku (reincarnate lama), very rigorous testing procedures need to be taken. Rinpoche pointed out that it is a very pure example confirming the belief in reincarnation. ‘This is a case of an ordinary child remembering his life as an ordinary monk.”

The monks and teachers of Shechen were very joyful to meet the reincarnation of their old friend in this little boy.