Drought and Rain

“Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.”

Zen wisdom

This past week was a week of hauling water.  Cans and cans of it, to the tender places in the garden.  Not a drop of rain in sight and a relentlessly sun – 95 degrees and merciless.

Madly, in the middle of this, I bought lilies.

We’d gone to pick blueberries while those close to home take a few more days to fully ripen.  We were by ourselves on a Tuesday, ducking between rows of tall blues and the happy bees who were there with us.  A tractor in the distance was clearing more land – berries are a profitable business up here, and so is honey.  The tractor and the bees droned, we filled our cardboard quart boxes, and were just about to leave our few dollars in the honor box by the carved brown bear near the entrance, when we noticed the lilies.

Fierce bright trumpets fought for attention — crimsons and fire-engine reds, golds and buttercup yellows sprung up from masses of spikey green blades.  Even in this drought, they had somehow managed to emerge, a brave salutation from a patch of no man’s land on a road that leads from New Hampshire into Maine.

Just the sight of them dispelled for a moment the background pall of worry that has dogged me for weeks now — and not just because water levels are low.

Droughts may best be described as those times in life when we feel dried out, played out, with no relief in sight.   At present, we collectively share the endless drought experience of the pandemic, of course.  But droughts come to all of us in our individual lives – to our sense of purpose, our belief in what we are doing.  To our friendships, marriages, our relationship to our children, or our work.

Like the Black-eyed Susans in my garden, we at first just keep putting out, straining towards the warmth of the sun, until one day we wake up and know that the ground beneath us is just too dry to take another breath.

These are the times when we do well to lie down and find some shade, if we are lucky to find any.  Just stop and listen to our heartbeats, our feelings, our dreams.  Wait.  Listen.  Attend deeply.  Even, fear that we may curl up and die.   When it comes to droughts — to those points at which we have no idea what will happen if we can’t go on as we have — there are worst things than death.  We may need to die to our denial, our avoidance, our dysfunctional coping mechanisms.  Old patterns and expectations may need to be released, to make time and space for our true roots to regenerate.

 

In her book, When Things Fall Apart, Pema Chodron writes, “To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man’s land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again. “  (p. 71)

In joining the idea of being full alive to each moment, and the willingness to die, Chodron touches on a profound truth. Pain and drought offer us the possibility of leaving old ruts and routines to rediscover the freedom of live each hour with renewed vibrance, from our true sources of vitality and truth.

To pick blueberries for an afternoon instead of staring at our screens.  To notice what is stirring in us.  To follow those small nudges that break the pall of worry with the force of new wisdom.

The lilies were a nudge, literally and metaphorically for us.  They fairly called out for notice.

Ten minutes later, we loaded two large plastic grocery bags full of lily life into the back of the car.  One is a Red Pinocchio, the other’s name I’m still tracking down.  Back home, dripping from the heat, we dug two deep holes, and plunked them in, pressed the soil, and watered, hoping for the best as the punishing sun finally departed for the night.

The next morning, serendipitously, I found in my inbox a compendious email from a high-toned nursery extolling the lily.  This was reassuring — our timing hadn’t been off.  These bright emblems in a grey time stand a chance of surviving and returning to bloom next spring.

I hadn’t anticipated how much pleasure a $15 investment could bring.

We planted them in a patch of yellow lilies and Queen Anne’s lace under two wild plums.  I can see them from where I sit in the house.  The effect of their red is electrifying.  Spirited, valiant, an ensign of something courageous and free.  They will live for just a day or two before going as limp as wet tissue paper after a party.  But sometimes this is all we need to remember our freedom.