What's Meant To Be

Call it what you want...karma or destiny but things have a funny way of working out. For those of you who know me and Austin, you know we've always had particular kinds of jobs. I have jobs that can look kind of easy or at least have nice perks. Austin on the other hand always has the hardest jobs, where the learning curve is slow and almost painful. Certainly not for the weak of heart.

So here we are at Green Gulch and Austin is working in the guest house. The beautiful, calm,

lovely guest house. He finally has time to slow down and enjoy. I on the other hand, jumped right into the garden with pretty much NO experience! I don't know a thing and I am busting my ass. I spent my morning with a very old and structurally particular rose bush. My task was

to prune it. I had help of course but holy moly, I am supposed to be eyeing each bud for it's direction of growth, the strength of it's stem, whether it will be growing interfering with another stem and whether it will be pleasing to the eye when it blooms in...4 months! Thank god I could spend the rest of the afternoon with something easy like weeding.

Just to keep things interesting I started out the day with no ordinary breakfast but ORYOKI breakfast. It is a Japanese ceremonial way of eating, it means 'just enough'.

I was sort of averse to trying it because you know I hate to be wrong and to not know how to do something :-) I acquired the correct bowls,

attended a lesson, practiced with Austin and then just let go of trying to be right. I had the best time! It felt like an extension of meditation. A particular form, everyone doing it together, food

servers bowing with the students, like learning a beautiful

dance. It was seriously joyous, so much so, that I wanted to laugh out loud. It is also a nice practice in accepting what is given without allowing room for 'I like this' or 'I don't like this.' Hence I ate more cottage cheese than I ever wanted, which is none, but I forgot to give the sign for 'only a little bit.'

Oh yeah, and here's our little home.