Tag Archives: Retreat

An Ode to the Backyard

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the sky over my backyard

This post is Judy Clement Wall’s fault. A little over a week ago, on her Zebra Sounds blog, she wrote a post that was an ode to hiking. In a related post a few days later on her A Human Thing blog, she wrote about places of solace, and asked readers to share theirs in the comments. This led to a conversation between Judy and I in the comment thread about my love for the backyard, where I said “someone should write an ode to the backyard” and she replied “you should.”

Okay.

sam and dex in the backyard

An Ode to the Backyard

My whole life, from the very first house I remember living in (we moved there when I was still a baby), the backyard has been a place of solace. I find comfort and relief there, safety and peace. Almost everywhere I have ever lived, the backyard has been my favorite spot.

According to me, a good yard needs four things:

  • Lots of green stuff, (bushes and trees and grass and fruits and vegetables and flowers and at least one Lilac)
  • A privacy fence
  • Chairs and a good mix of sun/shade for sitting
  • Dogs

obi (oh how I miss that boy) and dexter in the backyard

The first yard I remember was magic. We lived in a small house (by today’s standards, but the same size as the one I live in now) with a huge yard, almost a full acre. In fact, the yard was so big that when my mom and dad sold that house over twenty years later, they sold the “garden” as a separate lot and someone built a house on it.

I remember a huge cherry tree, plums, lilacs, a weeping willow, maples, birch, pine and fir, and a hazelnut. When I was in the second grade, a forester visited our class and gave us all Douglas Fir seedlings. I planted mine in the corner of our yard, years later buried my hamster underneath it (apparently my second hamster, my dad informed me a few years ago–the first one had died and he’d replaced it because he knew I’d be upset). The last time I saw that tree, it had grown to over 25 feet tall, and made me feel small, old and so young all at the same time.

I remember pink roses, purple irises, tiger lilies, bluebells, and in the garden raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries. There was a long slopped hill that we attempted to sled on when it snowed (which wasn’t often or much where we were in Oregon), and a long, wide field of grass below that saw many a football and baseball game. Our patio was a big enough stretch of concrete for both a basketball hoop and rollerskating. There was a family of Quail that lived in our backyard, came back year after year to have their babies, protected from the neighborhood cats by my dad. Quail babies are still one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen in my life, running in a line behind their Mama.

I remember my favorite spot, under the biggest maple tree. I would take a book and my green blanket and sit for hours under that tree. When I looked up, this is what I saw:

it was magic, it was medicine

Over the years, Eric and I have shared a few backyards, (we moved 12 times in the first 10 years we were married).

our very first backyard

this one was so small, I “mowed the lawn” with a pair of grass clippers

The backyard we have now, at the house we’ve lived in for 12 years, where all of our dogs have lived, is one of my favorites. When we were looking, we kept telling our realtor how important the yard was to us, that we planned on getting dogs, that it was in fact the whole reason we were looking for a new place (our condo had a patio but no real yard), but I don’t think she really believed us until we picked the one we would buy. She kept showing us nicer houses with little to no yard. When we picked this one, she said “I guess you were really serious about the yard being more important.”

obi at six months old, the first boy to enjoy our yard. i’d give just about anything to see him back there again…

the current residents, “helping” the mom garden

why the backyard needs grass

We live just a block away from an elementary school, so during the day, while they are at recess, our backyard fills with the sound of kids playing.

Because our neighborhood was built in the early 60s, there are lots of mature trees. In the early morning, this time of year, the sky is filled with bird song.

the view from my chair

succulent garden on the back step

There’s a Jeb Loy Nichols song called “Heaven Right Here” that is its own ode to the backyard.

So I’ll just take my time
And relax my mind
So I’ll stop – slow down
Watch the sun go down

Come on over to my yard
Sit around and let your troubles all disappear
Come on over to my yard
‘Cause right now heaven’s right here

raised beds, lilacs along the fence, a gifted garden of flowers, and a chipmunk we adopted after he was abandoned by the previous owners

sweet boy tomato plant

Maybe it’s because there is farming in my blood, encoded in my DNA, that makes me want to pick, plant, dig, and tend the earth, and this gives me a place to do so.

Maybe it’s because I love dogs and they love being in the yard, playing and lounging, rolling in the grass and chasing squirrels and barking and peeing on stuff.

Maybe it’s because I love to read and it’s a quiet, comfortable place to do so.

Maybe it’s because I am an introvert who loves solitude, being alone, but also loves nature, would rather be outside and barefoot.

Whatever the reason(s), I love a good backyard. It’s a place to retreat, to rest and relax, to read, to play, to listen, to be calm and still and quiet. It is my place of solace, magic, medicine, a living meditation on the preciousness of life.

R is for Retreat

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my shrine

Retreat is my word for the year. The qualities of retreat I hope to manifest: practice, balance, rest, and transformation. At four months in, a third of the way done, it seems the perfect moment to give you a progress report, to tell you what I’ve learned while on retreat so far.

I am studying a lot with the “master teachers” of my path, mainly women, artists and healers, studying with them both directly and at a distance: Pema Chödrön, Susan Piver, Tara Brach, Andrea Scher, Jen Lemen, Brene’ Brown, Susannah Conway, Rachel Cole, Laurie Wagner, Patti Digh, Jennifer Louden, and Mary Oliver. There are men too: Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, Daniel Collinsworth, Leo Babauta, Ze Frank, Chris Guillebeau, Jonathan Fields, Hugh McCleod, and Austin Kleon.

This isn’t even the full list, simply the primary instigators, the masters. I am reading, studying, taking classes, practicing, connecting and communicating with a rich, vibrant community of creative and compassionate people, and learning so much.

I am continuing to practice: writing, yoga, meditation, and dog. Yoga is steady, constant. There’s nothing new to report there. My meditation practice is deeper, stronger, more intense, more heartfelt and committed. Susan Piver’s Open Heart Project instigated the shift, the softening, and continues to support my practice. I also took vows and recommitted to working with a meditation instructor and participating in my local sangha.

As for dog, every day this practice deepens, as does my relationship with my dogs, my love and appreciation for them. Sam continues to teach me about enthusiasm and patience. Dexter reminds me there’s joy and play in every moment, even as we age and our body begins to change and confuse us. Losing Rocky, along with Dexter getting older, is a contemplation on impermanence–there is enough time, but time is short.

they might be giants

And writing…this is the practice that is the most transformed. Morning pages, this daily writing practice, has been constant for the past 3-4 years. But, starting a blog, taking myself seriously, going to a writing and meditation retreat with Susan Piver, taking Telling True Stories, sharing more of my writing publicly and regularly, has allowed me to rediscover, to claim, my voice and my confidence. I am also clear about my purpose for writing and then sharing it: writing is at first an act of self-care, and then it becomes service. I connect to my basic goodness, my innate wisdom and compassion and strength, and out of this renewed awareness and mindfulness, I can share my insights and hopefully ease suffering in the world.

I believe that at the heart of everything we might judge as “wrong” with our self, our life, our community, our culture, our world is that we have forgotten basic goodness. We have forgotten that we are all connected and fundamentally the same, all of us desiring to be happy and safe, that everything, including us, is precious and sacred, that we can, with confidence, be with what is, as it is–even the messy, confused, brutal, and sharp bits. We are brilliant and sane, one blink of an eye from being completely awake, and brave and strong enough to work with whatever arises.

The things I am still working with, struggling with are resting and my relationship with food. I am getting better. I am more fully embodied, connected to my body and aware of my actual hungers, more loving and kind in my response to them, more willing and likely to provide what is needed, to feed the right wolf.

These habitual patterns, of pushing too hard and too far, pandering to ego and fear, smashing myself to bits, are old, deep, and sticky, so they shift, but more like the way water wears at a rock. The eye doesn’t see the change, but it is happening, slowly and with time transformation happens. There is more love, more kindness, gratitude and confidence.

In terms of my food issues, I realized that at the heart of it was the need for self-love. There is no diet, exercise program, external wisdom, strategy, technique, plan, or routine that would “fix” it. All I have to do is love myself, realize that I am precious and treat myself accordingly. When you know you are precious, you care for yourself, you get enough rest and exercise, you feed yourself well. It all falls into place when your perspective is love, gentle and kind and wise and brave.

just as i am

The biggest realization so far is that I didn’t need to change.

This process of life-rehab has revealed that I didn’t need to become someone else, different or improved, but rather I simply needed to remember, to sink in to, BE who and where I already am. My strengths are exactly those I was born with. I am, and always was, generous, sensitive, kind, insightful, wise, creative, imaginative, curious, wanting connection and community but also needing time alone with stillness and silence and space, a nature and animal lover, collaborative, easy going, nurturing, loving, peaceful, and funny. This is who I have always been, but I learned to mask it, hide it, torture it, because I believe it, believed I wasn’t loveable or enough or worthy or whole or healthy already.

While on retreat, I have remembered myself. I love myself, I appreciate everything I am and everything I have (most of the time), and I am brave enough to be vulnerable, to risk that I’ll show up as I am, my fully embodied and real self, and you might not love me, might not even like me, might actively dislike and reject me. That’s becoming more okay. I love myself, I have faith in my basic goodness, and in that way, I don’t have to depend on you as a source of love and acceptance–I’ve already got that covered. This frees me up to get busy with the real work, of realizing and manifesting my basic goodness, my “buddha-nature,” and being of service, easing suffering where and when I can.

This is freedom. This is life. This is love. I am love.

path with a heart