Local Color and The Great Work

The roses are still blooming 

Roses are still blooming here at Tree House

profusely. 

With the cold coming in and the clouds obscuring the sun no doubt they too will very soon shut down for the winter.

Matt is almost finished raking the leaves that covered the grass

One of the perks of living at Tree House is my rent covers all yard maintenance and I don’t have to do a thing. 

This is something to be thankful for, but there are times I can only complain about the noise the machines make. 

                                                                                                               So often it is only the workings of our mind that 

                                                          separates us from happiness and/or those we love.

In the biblical story about the 
Garden of Eden it seems to me eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil is a metaphor for our ability to make judgments.

Perfection of full bloom

Last Christmas, friend Deneen Peckinpah, gave me a beautiful calendar with the theme of the writings of Hafiz, a fourteenth century Sufi poet who became a famous spiritual teacher. 

His poems are classics in the literature of Sufism and mystical verse and were translated by Emerson and read by Nietzsche and Doyle whose character, Sherlock Holmes, quotes Hafiz.

This morning as I glanced at this calendar I saw this: 

“All I know is love, and I now find my heart infinite and everywhere."

Classical view of a bud near the patio

Reading this my 

heart says,“Yes, I can love and 

feel that spaciousness and freedom."  

Allowing others to be who they are and welcoming them in my heart. 

And yet, my mind seems to be 

ever alert to life’s shortcomings 

and unfairness. 

I believe it is our job to reconcile 

our heart and our mind.

What a beauty

Not by shutting either one of them down, but through integration, allowing them to merge, to become allies. 

Allowing Love and Reason to 

become friends. 

I don’t know anyone personally 

who has achieved this. 

It is no wonder the process of bringing our mind and heart into alignment is called 

The Great Work. 

Thank you for reading my blog. Feel free to leave a comment.

I love taking pix of these roses. Seems I never really looked at flowers or insects until I began to look at them through the viewfinder on my camera. To be able to capture what I see and share is delightful and fun.