Changing Perspectives

The predicted storms did not arrive until the afternoon. The sky was clear and the sun was bright. I was pulling weeds by the front fence near the street. Even the mailman affirmed as he walked by, it was a good morning to be out in the garden.

But the story starts a little over ten years ago when we began re-creating the gardens of the old mansion we bought to turn into a Zen Temple. The acre of surrounding grounds had been landscaped and cared for in the late 80’s, then neglected for the next twenty years. We loved the curving brick walkway and the eight-sided gazebo that sat under the trees in the back. Much thought had been given to this space; a number of large rocks strategically placed and quite a few robust rhododendron and azalea had survived the years of neglect.   But other areas were abandoned to weeds, bramble and the varied litter of a forest floor.

We cut back the overgrowth and found the weeping cherry tree, built the front access ramp around it, then found the two-ton stone Buddha to sit in front of this lovely specimen. But a lot of the area under the trees was bare and we were looking for ground cover. One helpful member of our community brought some lily-of-the-valley from her garden. She said it was a hearty ground cover that did well in shade or sun. I remembered the sweet smelling bell-like white flowers from my childhood and was happy for her donation.

The ten or twelve little lily-of-the-valley plants survived and thrived where little else would grow. For the first many years, I was happy to see their bright green leaves poking up in April with the white fragrant blossoms not far behind. But then the worm slowly turned. (We actually have tons of worms in the garden here and I suppose they are always turning, but this was one worm who turned not in a good way.) I began to notice the green patches of lily-of-the-valley beginning to encroach on other ground covers and plants that I preferred. I did occasional weeding and mostly ignored the creeping threat.

Over the past two years, however, it has gone to another level. All of the gardens along the western fence are now infested with lily-of-the-valley. Spreading through underground runners, it weaves a tangled mass that surrounds and kills other small plants. Removing one or two shoots does nothing to slow its advance.

Last year I got serious had one of our volunteer garden workers remove this pest from the front gardens. And experienced gardener, she dug deep and removed masses of roots. After several hours of hard work she managed to remove all the lily-of-the-valley from that area of the garden.

This year, I have set the same volunteer and two others to work on the other hot spots further back. As she was weeding, she casually asked me how the front was. I reassured her that they were clear due to her hard work. But a day later, I actually looked and realized I was wrong. Large patches of lily-of-the-valley had not only had survived but were spreading again. And that’s where I started in the glorious sun of yesterday morning.

To remove lily-of-the-valley, you have to dig about ten inches down to get below the mass of roots. Then you reach in and pull and shake as you trace the roots and remove the roots. The tender early spring green shoots belie the determined mat of roots lurking beneath the surface. It’s messy physical work.

I had a wonderful time.

As I worked, in the warmth of the sun, my neighbor stopped by.   He was out for his morning constitutional in his bandana-like mask. We talked about the weather and this endless pandemic. We exchanged stories of going to the grocery store—all from a safe distance. Another garden helper also stood ten feet away as we chatted about the beauty and variety of daffodils as we shared the beautiful garden. It was almost like normal.

I dug up two large buckets of lily-of-the-valley roots, appreciated the endless quality of my task and was greatly satisfied.

This is only a start but the worm has turned once more. Instead of feeling overwhelmed by this sweet smelling competitor, I am looking forward to many more mornings of sitting in the garden digging, getting dirty and working to create the space for other things to grow and thrive.

Personal Practice: In this time of limited physical contact with each other, what are the physical activities that you still do? Pay attention today to the physicality of preparing your food – the sounds and textures, the smells and associations. Be present to the touch of the bowls as you remove them from the cabinet, to the sound of the silverware as you take it from its drawer or the cereal as it clatters from the box into its waiting bowl. Work in your garden. Make your bed. Sweep the floor. Appreciate what you have to do. Everywhere is touching and being touched. Everything you encounter is your life.

Teaching and Learning the Next Thing

I once had the privilege of working with an organizational change consultant when I was head of Dynamy, a small gap year school here in Worcester, MA. He had worked with many large organizations but was very helpful to our small team. Apparently the patterns of human interaction apply whether there are two or two hundred people on your team. Even a team of one, I have found, is enough be problematic. Even when it’s just you, in your apartment or in your life, you still have a challenging team to work with—all the many parts of yourself.

At Dynamy, we were trying to improve our performance as a team. We did well enough, but I wanted less struggle and more ease in how we worked together—how we did all the things we had to do to provide support for young people to learn and grow. It was clear to me that we, as adults, had to keep learning and growing in order to allow the young people to do the same.

My conviction came from my own intuition and from a longitudinal study that was begun in the 1930’s. The researchers in this study tracked students from very different kinds of secondary schools for several decades to see if they could determine what kinds of schools, traditional or progressive, were better for the students. They found no discernable difference based on school philosophy, but did find a significant correlation between the quality of education and schools that had recently changed their educational model. Schools that had recently or were in the process of change were better for the students. My take away was that those were the schools with engaged faculty, where the teachers were learning and growing along with the students.

Emerson put it this way ‘Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear a word you’re saying.’ It’s not our eloquent words, but rather something deeper that is the real communication. Recent studies of infant behavior confirm this observation. Little human beings are masters of imitation. Long before language emerges, babies are masters of watching and mimicking. Our biggest impact on our children and even the world is not what we say, but what we do. I would take it further to say it’s not what we do, but who we are.

I try to take this quite personally. While the words I speak and the actions I take are important, the real teaching and giving happens at a more subtle level. I suppose this is bad news and good news. The bad news is that the reality of my inner life is not always clear and straightforward. I consistently am not as wise and compassionate as I would wish.

The good news is that I don’t have to rush around doing things and making sure I am reaching enough people or giving enough Dharma talks. I don’t have to solve our organizational challenges and make sure everything holds together. My job as leader, parent, grandparent and teacher is to pay attention to what is right here. In doing the work of this moment, whether weeding the garden or writing an email, I am making my biggest impact on the world.

My job is not to be perfect. (Mission accomplished.) My job is to be willing to change. (Still in progress.) The important question is not how to get those other people to change, but am I willing to change? Am I willing to keep learning and growing—to keep leaving behind old certainties and moving into what is emerging now? This is the spirit that allow us to be truly help others.

Personal Practice: Think of one team that you’re part of that you would like to change in some way. It could be the ‘team’ of your family or a work team or your apartment mates or your relationship with a friend. What is the change you would like to see? Your first answer to this question may likely be something to do with other people behaving differently. Looking beyond that, ask yourself: ‘What is one small step I could take that might lead toward change?’ It might be some kind of inward shift. It might be some specific action. Do it. Be it. Notice what happens.

Speaking of the Weather

Small white flakes drift lazily down, almost invisible against the frilly pink blossoming buds of the crabapple tree. It won’t amount to much, this snow on the second Saturday of May, but it sure is a great conversation starter.

I used to think conversations about the weather were a form of avoidance; that it was better to get to the heart of the matter and talk about important things. But in our world of limited social contact, I am more appreciative of the nurturing and mysterious function of being in each other’s presence. Perhaps talking about the weather is simply a way to make it socially acceptable to be in each other’s presence for a while.

My new life of Zoom meetings has reinforced my belief in the primarily unconscious nature of human communications. We can easily assume it’s about the words, but it’s not. We think if we make the right argument, our spouse will suddenly see the truth of our opinion about how the baked potatoes really should be cooked. Even when we’re by ourselves, as many of us are these days, words appear in our mind to defend and shore up our positions and opinions.

But email has proven beyond a doubt that words themselves are a very limited vehicle for conveying the fullness of human meeting. I’ve had so many email misunderstandings that I’ve decided that if my communication contains any difficult emotional content at all, I should do it over the phone or in person. Though I can write a clear critique of what you did or said and feel complete in my expression, that expression rarely comes across as I intended and equally rarely moves the relationship toward deeper understanding.

And now Zoom. I read an article yesterday on why time on Zoom is so exhausting. Though I can’t find the article now (when I searched I got lost in the myriad articles now available about the challenges of Zooming) the gist of it was that without the usual unconscious signals that happen in person, we have to work much harder on Zoom. We’re not being nurtured by each other’s presence, we’re not getting the thousands of micro-signals we’re used to and it’s much harder to know if we’re safe and to know where we stand with each other in this flat form of social interaction.

The article also reported that simply seeing an image of ourselves is stressful for most of us. When I mentioned this to a friend, he said he’s found the Zoom control that eliminates his picture from his screen and still shows it to others. My immediate thought was that I need to know how I look and how I’m being seen on Zoom to be able to have a sense of how I’m coming across. Then I realized how different this is from my experience of talking and being with people in person. In the ‘face-to-face’ conversations I’m almost never aware of my face and overall appearance. I have the luxury, in person, of focusing on the person in front of me and on whatever is emerging in the moment, which almost never includes seeing my face.

But back to the weather, which I’m happy to write about this fine spring morning. The snow continues but seems to have no intention toward accumulation—content to be blown this way and that before touching the green earth and vanishing. And the crabapple buds and blossoms are unfazed by the mini white drama.

Personal Practice: Next time you are in physical proximity with someone, whether it’s on a six-foot walk with a friend or with someone you’re sheltering-in-place with, see if you can sense what is going on between you without words. It will, by definition, be subtle and rather intangible. No matter what you sense, can you appreciate and receive the mysterious and nurturing communication that goes on without words? Can you lean into this capacity we have as humans to give and receive without saying a word? If you’d like, you can also talk about the weather.