Daily Archives: May 6, 2008

Garden, Memories

SuperMemo

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62  bar falls 29.71 0mph SW dewpoint 57 Beltane

                  New Moon (Hare)

It rained and the temperature dropped 13 degrees.  Mother nature at work.  In the cool moist air after the rain I planted onions, beets, lettuce and carrots.  I also transplanted 3 daylily clumps out of the flower bed I’m converting to vegetables.  Cool cloudy, preferable moist days are perfect transplanting weather.

The earth smells rich, a loamy scent that arises only after a rain.  My Dad’s Aunt Rella, an early cancer patient, took an atomic cocktail and said it tasted like “the air after a June rain.”  An image that has remained with me all these years.

I just started using a new program called SuperMemo.  It showed up in an interesting article in Wired.  This Polish memory researcher has developed this program that times repetitions of material you want to learn.  This fits some neurological model of the brain.  He guarantees 95% retention if  you use the program faithfully.

I plan to use it learn art history, Chinese characters, horticultural information, folk tale and world history.  And probably, over time, other stuff, too.  This kind of thing excites me.

Art and Culture, Faith and Spirituality, GeekWorld

Eat a Peach, Live Forever

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75  bar falls 29.75 1mph WSW dewpoint 41  Beltane

                      New Moon (Hare Moon)

I chose the English medieval name for the moon this month because of a wonderful incense burner in the Weber Collection.  It is a bronze bunny, eyes lifted toward the moon, ears erect.  There are holes where the ears meet the head and at the mouth.  The label copy says this rabbit watches the moon to see her sister, a white rabbit, who, according to Taoist thought, lives on the moon.  There she brews up an elixir of immortality. 

This focus on immortality is typical of religious Taoism, not philosophical.  My interest is in the latter.  Religious Taoism grew from the intersection I mentioned a few posts ago between Buddhism and Taoism.  Going in the Buddhist direction one outcome of this convergence created Chan Buddhism (Zen in Japan).  Going in the Taoist direction Taoists began to create anthropomorphic gods in emulation of the Mahayana form of Buddhism that came into China.  Mahayana picked up deities and demons and guardians from the Hindu and Bon (Tibetan native religion) religious pantheons.   

The focus on immortality occurred at some point along the way, though I’m not sure when since I have not studied religious Taoism.  Another way to gain immortality involved a peach tree that bloomed once every 3,000 years.  If you were around when it bloomed and ate a peach, presto Immortalito!  I’ve hunted for places to by a 2,999 year old tree, but so far no joy.

Our generator is online and ready to rock.  Jim, the service guy who explained it all to us, said, “Now you’ll never have another outage.”  Sounds about right.  But, at least we’re ready if it  happens.

Family, Garden, GeekWorld

Life Proceeds in Its Ordinary Way

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58  bar steady 29.81 1mpn SW dewpoint 20 Beltane

                    New Moon (Hare Moon)

Waiting on the service guy from Allied Generator to fill us in on how our generator works and what we need to do with it.  We went ahead and bought it, now it remains to learn how to use it.

Another work outside day.  Cleaning up continues, though I imagine today I’ll expand the clean up to the garden bed.  Kate may get started on the pruning.  9 days or so until the average date of the last frost, May 15th, so planting annuals is still not a good idea.  Transplanting though can proceed apace and I plan to remove day lilies from one bed completely and move them to other sites along the edge of our woods.  The peonies, large now, will get divided and move to the front.

It is the most distressing or reassuring reality, the fact that life proceeds in its ordinary way no matter what the drama in your own life.  I find it reassuring for the most part, though at times it seems cruel, unspeakably cruel.  Sometimes it seems that the pain my life should cause the whole world to stop spinning, to pause for a moment while I adjust, solve or resolve the dilemma, then someone can push play.