Hope, Snow, Memories and Mindfulness

I sit here in front of my computer screen with this amaryllis to my right and a cup of English Breakfast tea on my left. My second cup as I take in the weak sun, attempting to break through the low hanging gray clouds and as the light streams through the window.

This one is a 2017 Holiday a gift from a friend and volunteer  at Prospect Gardens. I am proud  that it survived, including a few months of rest in a dark closet. A second  amaryllis from last season and another gift, is still not sending up a green spike. I'm optimistic that it will come forth.

A third amaryllis, in a blood read metal container, has a two inch green shoot. Another gift from Ann's friend, received this last holiday season.

According to Wikipedia, "Amaryllis "is Greek meaning "to sparkle" and also refers to the bitterness of the bulb. To me, the plant signifies renewal and hope.  Spring indeed will once again arrive. The first day of spring is on March 20, less than two months away.

Meanwhile, it's now 8 degrees below zero and with more sub zero temperatures for the next week.The snow that fell last Wednesday, the 23rd, still lies heaped on our deck. The Buddha statute is covered. If you look closely into the corner, the little knob is his head.

These cold days remind me of life on the family farm, which we sold in 1962 when I was a senior in high school. Temperature would hit minus 30 degrees and last for several days. A snow storm could dump up to four feet of snow, leaving us stranded for days at the end of our nearly two mile long dead-ended driveway.

During a particular bad year, snow often started in late November and would continue into early April. I recall my classmates and me feeling particularly bad as a result of a late April Easter storm that closed our one room school. The day before the storm hit our teacher made small paper Easter baskets filled with jelly beans and chocolates, one basket for each student. Candy was a rare treat for my family and for other classmates. The teacher put the baskets away in a small closet. On the morning school reopened, I listened in shock as the teacher announced that mice feasted on the much anticipated goodies while the school was closed.

Like all kids, we took time to enjoy the snow. We especially enjoyed sledding down a hill next to the barn, using a large wooden bobsled that was impossible to steer. It held two or three of us. Somebody gave the sled a shove and who knew where we were headed towards.

However, on extreme cold days extra efforts were required to feed, care for and protect the cows and other animals. In many respects survival of us and animals was at stake.The barn became a refuge warmed by animal body heat and with the inside of windows covered with a layer of icy frost so thick that you could scrap it off. The frost on the windows created beautiful swirling patterns that I can still see in my mind's eye.

Cows and pigs received extra straw bedding and feed. In the morning, any frozen water pipes were carefully thawed out. Chickens were kept all day in the coop along with the geese. Extra care was taken to brace the doors of the barn and the coop so they did not become ajar during the freezing weather. The John Deere tractor and manure spreader were backed into the barn through a large opening with a sliding door.  Another large storm door was lowered from the ceiling, adding additional protection against the penetrating cold. Sometimes hay bails were placed at the bottom edge of the lowered door, adding more protection.

Extra vigilance was required during those freezing days. Somebody (often it was my Mother), would get up in the middle of the night to check that all animals were safe and that no water pipes had frozen and split open. My Mother also tended the fires in the two house's wood and coal stoves during the cold days. At night she heaped the red embers into a pile forming a base for the morning fire. Very early each morning my Mother got up and added wood or coal to the smoldering embers and in little while the stoves were red hot. Accidentally touching a stove risked a severe burn.

We slept under "piezynas", goose down comforters, which were at least eight inches thick. We wasted no time getting into bed and I slept in my long underwear. My Mother's bedroom was on the first floor, which was once my Grandmother's and Grandfather's bedroom. I shared one of the four second story bedrooms with my brother Louie and sister Barbara. Louie and I shared a double bed in one corner and Barbara's bed was in another corner.  Her bed was once my Grandmother's. Older brothers when they were single slept in two beds in a third bedroom, and the coldest one in the house.

Before they married and when I was a young boy, two sisters shared a double bed in a fourth bedroom. This one had an open floor register allowing heat to rise up from the wood stove located in the living room below. On bone chilly mornings, Louie and I ran to the register and quickly dressed in the rising heat before heading to the warm kitchen on the first floor.

Boys always did the barn chores. After Tom, my older brother, returned to the UW Madison in the fall of 1960, Louie and Ernie, two younger brothers and me did them. On those freezing days we got into our thick winter coats, slipped into our heavy boots and headed out into the frigid cold. We hurried across the frozen yard when it was still dark  and the yard light cast our shadows across the snow.  In the warm barn the cows waited to be milked and fed along with the rest of the animals. A warm breakfast, often scrambled eggs and bacon or oatmeal along with a lot of homemade bread, followed.  We headed to school after getting washed up and changing into our school clothes.

Besides recalling these memories, the recent snowfall and my walk through the neighborhood and Prospect Gardens reminded me of Mary Oliver's poem, "First Snow Fall."  The poem to me encourages us to suspend the search for answers to questions that are continually on our mind. In other words, to be mindful, present and fully experience what is arising in the moment.

First Snow

The snow

began here

this morning and all day

continued, its white

rhetoric everywhere

calling us hack to why, holy;

whence such beauty and what

the meaning; such

an oracular fever! flowing

past windows, an energy it seemed

would never ebb, never settle

less than lovely! and only now,

deep into night,

it has finally ended.

The silence

is immense,

and the heavens still hold

a million candles; nowhere

the familiar things:

stars, the moon,

the darkness we expect

and nightly turn from. Trees

glitter like castles

of ribbons, the broad fields

smolder with light, a passing

creekbed lies

heaped with shining hills;

and though the questions

assailed us all day

remain---not a single

answer has been found----

walking out now

into the silence and the light

under the trees,

and through the fields,

feels like one.

Oliver, Mary (1992). New and Selected Poems. Beacon Press: Boston, MA. pp 150-51. 

While walking in the aftermath of Wednesday's seven inch
snowfall, here are some winter scenes. I suspended the search for answers while being mindful of what was arising.

This is from the seating area where Monroe Street intersects with Regent Street and part of the new plaza across the street from Mickey's Dairy Bar.  Mickey's has been part of the neighborhood for years. It's especially popular with UW students, and with their parents when they are visiting.  A must experience for any Madisonian as well as those of you who visit our fair city.

What caught my attention was the marshmallow like snow caps and how some hung in mid air.  A few of these marshmallows collapsed while the sun heated up the surface. This one remained steady while waiting to slip off its pedestal.

Here's another great neighborhood hangout, Michael's Frozen Custard, closed for the season.  The sign in its window says "Opening in March", another anticipated sign of spring.  The word "frozen" caught my attention as did the snow covered umbrellas, tables and benches.

Michael's is just across the street from our apartment. Our neighborhood's Fourth of July parade assembles in Michael's parking lot.  Kids of various ages on their decorated bikes, along with their parents, make the short trip to Wingra Park.

Ann and I often have lunch at Michael's after working in Prospect Gardens. I highly recommend the California Veggie burger and sweet potato fries followed by, of course, a dish of custard or a sundae.


The beauty of snow and calming silence also descended on Prospect Gardens. All is resting under a thick white blanket.  Here's a view towards the west and on the north side of the Gardens with the bike path newly cleared.

Another west view and on the south side of the path. The bird house, topped with fluffy snow, awaits spring and in anticipation of new renters.

Another bird house with it's fluffy snow cap. The bright colors stood out against the snow and brown fence. The shadows are evidence of the sunny, blue sky and temperatures in the low 20s. My... balmy!!!!

I'm feeling grateful for the protective cover of snow blanketing the Gardens.  May this cover be replenished and remain until the warming days of spring gently reveal what lies beneath and ahead.











I end these musings with a snow scene of Holy Wisdom Monastery, near Middleton and the location of last weekend's meditation retreat. The retreat started on Friday at 10 a.m. and ended on Sunday at 3 p.m. You can see the Retreat Center and Guest House in the background.

The fresh new snow of Friday that I walked through during a lunch break meant I experienced the message of Mary Oliver's: "First Snow" poem.  The snow continued to quiet the mind, keeping the incessant chatter and questions within the mind at bay. The answer was the quiet and peacefulness of the snow itself.  May all of you experience the quiet and peacefulness of fresh snow as this winter season unfolds.