Tag Archives: patience

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eternity in a seed

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Did you know cyclamen are tubers and not bulbs?  In the grander scheme of death and destruction, it probably means little to most of us that a plant is more akin to a potato than a tulip.  In terms of caregiving however, it might make some difference.

I’ve always loved the astonishing flowers of the cyclamen; angel wings swooping back poised to descend on earth yet never quite completing the landing.  Over the years I’ve bought several of these plants and enjoyed the displays all the more for thinking they were like forced tulips – lovely and poignantly impermanent for being constrained in a pot.  The cyclamen were even more exotic because they could not grow in my garden and were only available pre-grown.

When the first one I had began to die, I called in to the CBC gardening show and asked about saving it.  The instructions I got were simple: water it without letting it touch the “bulb.”  It died anyway and I resigned myself to having short-term romances with the plant, composting them when the flowers wilted.

One day while watering the plant, I noticed that the leaves were flattened exposing a view of the bulb shifted off-center.  Immediately I blamed our little Zen Master Sprout who had been seen occasionally testing the plants for their snooze factor.  Because, in my view, this particular plant had lasted the longest of all the plants (it might even be ten years old), I put some effort into reading up on how to revive it and solve the mystery of the transported bulb.

Apparently, cyclamens grow from tubers.  It would seem my dear plant is and is not my dear plant at all.  It is several generations removed having produced shoots from its tubers and happily procreating all these years.

Then I learned about the cyclamen fruit, a round pod left after the petals dried and fell off.  This I had thought was the end of the plant; it signalled a parting of company as I walked it to the compost heap.  In fact, it was the beginning – of sticky brown seeds and new life.

There’s a lesson in this.

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right looking away

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Following up the theme of quiet persistence from last week, it was lovely to see this little fellow sprouting.  (Oh yes, Zen Master Sprout is doing well, thriving on generous amounts of tolerance and occasionally being put in his place by our Matriarch Cat, Desireé.)  This is an orchid.  I got one several years ago in full bloom but was never able to encourage more blossoms.  Being the lazy sort, I would from time to time do a bit of hortigoogling but the suggestions all seemed to require too much effort.  So I watered the dear thing haphazardly as I do with most of my plants and it lumbered along in much the manner of most pot-bound beings, that is to say it sat contented not to shrivel up and die.  One might say that orchid showed some quiet persistence but I suspect plants are generally resilient and thankfully robust to our neglect and ignorance.  

Last Fall, I came across a type of orchid called a “Just Add Ice” which is not a species but a technique.  About the same time I read about a blogger pal who had received an orchid as a gift.  He worried about caring for it and whether he was up to the ministrations such a rare and delicate plant would need.  I felt a bit guilty at first glancing over at my orchid which was languishing in a pool of murky water; then I felt competitive.  Could I get mine to bloom before his?  I also recalled during one samu or work period at Upaya, the resident gardener came into the dokusan room where I was cleaning up.  Using a damp cloth, she gently wiped down the each of the leaves of the lusciously blooming orchid.  I asked her how to make these things bloom and she looked at me with that “oh you still don’t get it, do you?” look.  

With a caretaker so attached to outcomes and desirous of sensual pleasures, no wonder my orchid remained resolutely barren.

So I formed a clear intention to put some effort into caring for my orchid in a more conscious and attentive manner.  I even bought two more to keep it company on the shelf where they get indirect sunlight all day and cool temperatures at night.  I logged onto the Just Add Ice website and read (quickly and somewhat impatiently – but hey… transformation takes time!) about the care and feeding of orchids.  I even got a measuring cup to mix up the right amount of nourishing broth to feed them.  

Over the winter, the two I bought struggled to recover from the severe neglect they had endured in a cavernous hardware/homeware center.  When I tried to repot them, my heart dropped at the sight of rotted roots.  But, remembering to hold that intention to care close, I repotted all three and set up a reminder to fertilize them once a month on the first Sunday and to water them with 3 ice cubes on the other Sundays.

The instructions had said a new bloom should show in a month.  And this was the test: to read that but not become invested in it.  To look at the three orchid plants and see them as unique systems that had their own time-table of recovery, nourishment, and expression.  To step back each Sunday from the pots and not want to make it different from what it was.  And to welcome the anticipation and the deflation when that shoot with a mitten offshoot heralding a blossoming spike didn’t manifest.

This is a practice of Right Looking Away, Wise Disregard.

And then one day… one day…