Even if you aren’t tuned in to the diurnal lengthening, the earth bending toward the sun, a global surya namaskar, the arrival of daylight saving time disorients us into knowing that change is occurring.  (For some people NCAA March Madness provides the same awakening.)  The sudden darkening of the morning, as the hour hand is swept back, is not unwelcome to me…but the late evening, before the garden has had a chance to awaken properly seems unfair, and usually sends me into a frenzy of clearing the detritus of autumn and the ravages of winter winds.

The migrating avians will start coming through, already a western towhee has been hopping around, its lovely black wings tinged with orange and white.  Handsome bird.  Quails will roost on a soon to be covey, and the brown thrasher will start to look for a cholla in which to build a nest, the nasty prickers protecting it from snakes that love eggs.

A cactus thorn is painful and Gloria Anzaldúa in  Borderlands, La Frontera-The New Mestiza, she equates the irritant with writing.  Living in a state of psychic unrest, in a borderland, is what makes poets write and artists create.  It is like a cactus needle embedded in the flesh…making the pain worse before it can get better.   That’s what writing is for me, an endless cycle of making it worse, making it better, but always making meaning out of the experience, whatever it may be.

Equanimity in the midst of both pleasure and pain, Krishna counseled Arjuna before battle, was the goal.  So in this season of change, disruption, agitation, growth and renewal, I seek a sense of equanimity,  hopefully with a measure of grace.

To that end, I am excited to share in a mindfulness community beginning in April when City Silence comes to Santa Fe.