My Dream Becomes Reality

For several years, I have had the desire to show up at Amma’s ashram in Amritapuri, India without telling my son and daughter (Sreejit and Chaitanya) that I was coming. I loved fantasizing about how surprised they would be.

Imagining it and making it happen were two different things though. My children have lived at the ashram for many years and have many friends. The chances of me registering to come and them not finding out seemed nearly impossible. Not only would word travel at the ashram, but many, if not most, of people I know in Seattle have connections in the ashram as well.

I decided in order to accomplish my goal, I would have to keep my plan secret from almost everyone, both in India and Seattle. But that still didn’t solve the problem of how to deal with registering, arranging for an ashram taxi, making sure my flat was available and ready, etc.

Just prior to attending Amma’s Chicago area programs in June, I thought of someone who might help me figure it out. Our paths crossed soon after I arrived at the program, and when I explained the situation, she immediately thought of a person who might be able to make the necessary arrangements. He was very happy to participate in creating the surprise.

Sreejit and Chaitanya were puzzled that I was not planning to come to Amma’s Toronto programs, the last programs of the summer tour. Whenever they mentioned it, I smiled inside and said no, I was not going to Toronto this year. Long before Amma’s tour ended, I booked my ticket to India.

I am a firm believer in the “Tomorrow’s not promised” philosophy. I am never convinced I will be going to the ashram until I am getting out of the taxi on the ashram property. On July 13, I fell when walking through our Greenbelt restoration project. I caught myself with my hand and broke my wrist. How could I go to India in this condition? I knew I would have to wait until my July 25 doctor’s appointment to find out if I would need surgery. On that day, I learned that the bone was healing well and no surgery was needed. The doctor supported me in taking the trip.

The next two weeks I spent preparing to go. That wasn’t easy considering I had very little use of my right hand. At least by then I was in a splint that didn’t cover my fingers or elbow. Slowly but surely, I accomplished the things that I needed to accomplish.

The weekend before I left, I spent with friends in our local Amma community. Again, I smiled inside knowing that I would soon be writing them from India to let them know I had been keeping a big secret from them.

On August 11, I stepped out of the taxi in Amritapuri. I took my belongings to my flat and soon thereafter walked up the stairs to my daughter’s room and knocked on the door. When she asked who was there, I made a nondescript sound. She opened the door and I saw the look of shocked surprise I had been dreaming of. An hour later, I walked up behind Sreejit while he was working. I stepped in front of him and saw that same look of confusion followed by excitement. My dream had been realized… they were so surprised… and we were all happy to be together again.

To view the previous posts in this series click here.

Interesting Facts about Horsetails

  • Horsetails are native to every continent except Antartica and Australasia.
  • Horsetails date back to the Palaeozoic era which lasted from 541 to 252 million years ago. That means they were around before the dinosaurs!
  • Horsetails are related to ferns.
  • Equisetum is the only remaining species of horesetail.
  • Equisetum is sometimes called a living fossil.
  • Equisetum is also called horsetail, snake grass, scouring rush and puzzlegrass.
  • Eating too many horsetails can kill horses.
  • Horsetails evolved from plants that were 98 feet tall. Today’s horsetails are usually 1-2 feet although there is one in South America that grows to 32 feet..
  • In many places, horsetails are considered invasive plants.
  • Horsetails can be used to scrub metal.
  • Horsetails were used to treat a variety of ailments during the Greek and Roman days.
  • Some people use it to stop bleeding, as a diuretic or an astringent.
  • Horsetails reproduce via spores rather than seeds.

For more information read:

Equisetum
Horsetail
Horsetail Benefits
Horsetail Facts
Horsetail Plant Genus
Horsetails- a Modern Herbal
Paleozoic

I originally wrote this post for the Pacific Northwest GreenFriends Newsletter, August 2017, page 25.

Song Lyric Sunday: Purple Haze

The first song I thought of when I read that Helen’s Song Lyric Sunday prompt for this week was color was Jimi Hendrix’s Purple Haze. The fact that he was significant in my history (I heard him sing at the Atlanta International Pop Festival in 1970, two and a half months before he died), my son’s history (as a teenager Sreejit was an aspiring heavy metal musician) and was born in Seattle contributed to me choosing that song as well.

Purple Haze was written by Jimi Hendrix and was performed by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. It was released as a single in 1967 (7 years before my son was born). It became one of his most well known songs.

Lyrics

Purple Haze all in my brain,
lately things don’t seem the same,
actin’ funny but I don’t know why
‘scuse me while I kiss the sky.

Purple Haze all around,
don’t know if I’m coming up or down.
Am I happy or in misery?
Whatever it is, that girl put a spell on me.

Help me
Help me
Oh no, oh

Yeah, Purple Haze all in my eyes,
don’t know if it’s day or night,
you’ve got me blowing, blowing my mind
is it tomorrow or just the end of time?

Help me, yeah, Purple Haze!

New Microscopic Photos and More

Yesterday, I decided to accept the self-imposed challenge of taking microscopic pictures primarily with my non-dominant hand. Even under normal circumstances, I have trouble hooking up the adapter that connects my iPhone to my microscope. I wondered if adding a wrist splint to the mix would make the task impossible. I would, of course, stop if the endeavor caused any pain at all. It took some effort, but before long the equipment was ready for me to snap some photos.

Last summer, I took microscopic pictures of the orange Echinacea flowers in my garden. This year, my goal was to photograph flowers on all three of the Echinacea plants. Each plant has blooms that are a different color. I was able to accomplish that objective and more.

Plant #1

While I was taking the photos, I saw something I had never seen before. It was quite a surprise. Take a look at my first microscopic video!

I did not notice that the photos of that plant had come out pink, instead of light purple, until I created the photo gallery above last night. I wondered if that happened because of the light source I was using for the microscope. This morning, I decided to shine that light on the flower again to see if it changed the color.

When I went outside to retrieve the purple flower from the back deck, I was flabbergasted to see that it had turned pink during the night. It had not looked pink when I checked it last night.

Plant #2

I found another bug when I examined the second flower through the microscope. It was a different kind of insect, though, or was it a spider? It resembled a spider in the way it looked and acted but insects have six legs and spiders have eight. I only see six on this creature so I don’t know what it is. It was so small that I couldn’t see it on the plant even when I looked for it wearing my reading glasses.

Note: There is a point in the video below where the creature stops moving for a while, but it starts again.

Plant #3

top of leaf
bottom of flower
bottom of leaf

I appreciate the iPhone camera and the beautiful photos it takes. I appreciate whoever came up with the way to connect the microscope and the iPhone camera. I appreciate the ease of the WordPress blogging platform. I appreciate how easy it is to create photograph galleries on WordPress.com blogs. I appreciate the dictation program for Office products that Microsoft released last week and the person that told me about it. I appreciate the neighbor who took the case off my iPhone so I had a chance of  making this project a success. I appreciate my willingness to take on challenges in difficult situations. And, last but not least, I appreciate all of you who read my posts.

Greenbelt Restoration Work Parties: July 16 and 23

I had scheduled four work parties for the month of July. I reported on the July 2nd and 9th events in earlier posts. When I broke my wrist on July 13th, it was obvious that I could not lead the last two, but other Green Seattle Partnership Forest Stewards stepped into that role. Ananya, a GreenFriends member and my fellow Forest Steward on this restoration project, led the first one. Ananya was not available on the 23rd so Susan, a Forest Steward who has been doing this work for more than a decade, led that one.

Even though I was not able to do the physical work, I was happy to discover that I could still contribute. I completed the pre-and-post work party administrative work, gave the initial orientation to the participants at the beginning of the events and helped with the snack breaks. As a result, I continued to feel like a part of the team.

July 16th

Five GreenFriends members, two students, and a neighbor participated in the work party on the 16th of July. They focused on picking up trash and dismantling the piles of debris that had been raked up during previous work parties. The debris was placed on burlap bags that had been spread earlier in July. They moved any blackberry root balls they found in the piles to the rack zone to dry. They also spread burlap bags over land that had been cleared in the past.

Trash

It is always interesting to see what kind of trash we find. At this work party, a student found a tube of lotion that had an expiration date of 1989. That student was born in 1997!

Sarva found this treasure:

Moving rootballs to the rack zone

Spreading debris on burlap (click on gallery to enlarge photos)

One of the highlights of this work party was that we turned in the certificate for the prize we had won at Rainier Chamber of Commerce’s Bridge2Beach Seattle clean up event in March. The certificate was for $50 of Full Tilt ice cream. Needless to say, we enjoyed that part of the work party.

July 23

The July work parties were scheduled in a way that would support the University of Washington Environmental Science students. Their volunteer hours and reports were due on July 27th so the July 23rd work party was in high demand. Twenty-one students and two of their friends, a neighbor and three GreenFriends members participated in this work party.

The participants were divided into various groups. One group carried burlap bags from an area near the street to our Greenbelt site. Other groups looked for and removed bindweed, i.e. morning glory vines; removed ivy; or dug out blackberry root balls. As various jobs were completed, participants continued the ongoing work of laying down burlap and covering it with debris.

Attendees of this work party had the opportunity to eat the rest of the Full Tilt ice cream!

It is amazing how much we accomplished during the month of July. Every work party was a confirmation of the saying, “Many hands make light work.”  And besides that, it was fun to work together.

These photos show some of the trash that was picked up during the four July work parties. I wonder if we will ever get to the end of it.

Everything we do takes us a step closer to planting trees, shrubs and groundcovers this fall. It also moves us towards restoring this land to the beautiful forest it was meant to be; one that will provide homes to birds, butterflies, bees and many other forms of wildlife.

 

More Echinacea Photos

When I last posted echinacea photos I had flowers only on one plant and none of those blooms were fully open. I decided to try to take pictures this morning even though I’m still wearing a splint. It worked!

I couldn’t resist photographing the Lazy Susan flowers as well!

The Value of Humility

 

Humility makes you receptive to all experiences without judging them. Thus, with humility you can go deeper and learn more.         ~Amma

 

The Day I Became a Train Hopper

Today, I was telling a friend about this post. It is one I wrote in 2014. Since I’m not writing new posts until my wrist heals, I thought I would reblog this one. Enjoy!

Karuna Poole's avatarLiving, Learning and Letting Go

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Photo Credit: Wikimedia

I didn’t start that January 2014 day planning on becoming a train hopper.  Far from it.  My intention was to accompany my daughter, Chaitanya, to her dentist appointment.  Since her appointment was at Amma’s multi-speciality hospital in Kochi (India), several hours away from her ashram in Amritapuri where Chaitanya lives, it was bound to be an adventure, but train hopping was not supposed to be part of it.

Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS) Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS)

Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS) began in 1998 as a 100 bed hospital and has grown into a 1400 bed tertiary care center with a campus that includes a School of Medicine, School of Nursing, School of Dentistry, School of Pharmacy, and a Center for Nano-sciences and Molecular Medicine.

I have wanted to see AIMS for a long time, but once I arrive at the ashram on my yearly India…

View original post 1,799 more words

Out of Commission

I won’t be writing posts for a while. On Thursday, I wasn’t careful enough and stepped into a place where my feet got tangled in downed branches and vines in the Greenbelt.  I fell hard and broke my right wrist. I’m doing well, considering, but writing posts with my non-dominant hand seems unrealistic. Since I’m writing this, however, maybe I will be back sooner than I think!