Wow. I dislike what ‘news’ has become.  Political corruption? Hardly news-worthy, it’s an everyday thing, and it will continue to be for as long as we elect corrupt or corruptible human beings to positions of power.  It would be nice if a politician had to accept that role with the clear contractual understanding that he or she could not ever personally profit from that role in a direct way, or if anyone in power were ever actually held accountable for what they themselves force the nation to endure by their decisions or actions.  This is not an article about politics, or news.   I found it profoundly adult to hear Angelina Jolie go public with her account of choosing a double mastectomy over her very high risk of aggressive breast cancer…and found myself dismayed and in some cases disgusted that anyone would choose to criticize her choice; it was hers to make. Period. It’s a shame that women without that level of income, or those resources, don’t have the opportunity, realistically, to make that choice themselves. This is not an article about breast cancer, or the limited health choices that women without means face, or feminist issues of gender-limited personal freedom and choice.  Not a day goes by that the news doesn’t have another story about rape, and equally heinously, another story about what women ‘can do to prevent being raped’; rape is prevented by people not committing non-consensual sexual acts against others, it isn’t more complicated than that. Don’t rape.  The news these days just isn’t worth reading most of the time.  Not because the information isn’t valuable, not because some of what is observed isn’t newsworthy, but because the presentation of so much information is tainted with bias of one sort or another to the point that it isn’t ‘information’ at all; it is marketing, propaganda, spin, color, or outright lies. ‘Fact-checking’ relies rather heavily on someone, somewhere, being able to tell the difference between fact and opinion. lol.

I’m frustrated by how easily my balance can be disturbed by the media. ‘News’ that is intended to distress, to frighten, to alarm, to ‘call to action’ rather than inform, advise, or enlighten isn’t ‘news’ at all – it is an attack on my consciousness. I avoid it. I ask friends to stop sending me links to things. Ah, but we all use Facebook, don’t we? Well, I still do – some very dear friends and loved ones use it as their primary form of communication, long distance.  It’s hard seeing some of the things people post. More and more of my friends use ‘trigger alerts’, which I value. I’m using them more, too.

28 days… one menstrual cycle away from being 50. lol.

Spring is still unfolding all around me. I love the walk to work in the mornings; strolling past each neighbor’s garden, seeing the flowers opening day by day, feeling the soft chill morning air against my skin, or perhaps a tender misty rain falling – like this morning.  I keep returning to my own garden, morning and evening, watering, watching, loving…

“Kiss of Desire”, kissed by a misty morning rain.

I love the colors of morning, and the surprises…

“Graham Thomas” blooms for the first time this year.

Last year we picked out some roses likely to do well in this garden. “Graham Thomas” was one, and already quite large and eager to take his place as master of the central flower bed.  I’m quite delighted, also, with “Ebb Tide”; covered with buds and blossoms of a rich deep purple.

“Ebb Tide” wowing me.

Old favorites draw my eye, too, and I smile even thinking seeing “Baby Love” on the other end of my walk home tonight.  Selected with sentiment and love, she was the featured rose of my last garden, a much smaller space – too small for my grand plans. lol.

“Baby Love” will bloom like this through the year and well into November.

My garden is a sanctuary where ‘the news’ can’t reach me.  When I’m in my garden, I am in the moment, aware, engaged, and being on this extraordinary other level.  Still working on mindfulness practices I am hoping will one day be very natural in my experience, as natural as stepping into my garden.

A mystery rose.

…Life has a lot of lessons to share, a lot of mysteries to reveal. Perhaps one day I will find mindfulness an easy part of being, and figure out what that mystery rose is, or find the words to tell the world “You have no power over me.”

In the meantime, I meditate, practice mindfulness, consider my Big 5, learn better skills for taking care of me, and hope to ask the questions that reveal my own heart to me most clearly.  In between, I garden.  😀