Passion, Self-Compassion & Beauty of a Rose!

Our Six Dollar Tea Rose!

      

  Eating lunch I looked out the slider as our potted rose bloom bowed and straightened in the ebb and flow of each wind gust. Putting pen to paper I wrote the following poem

Prelude to Winter 

The rose

Continues to 

Bloom as

Summer ends,

and

Fall winds test

Passion's resolve;

      

     The word Passion originated from the Greek meaning to suffer. In our present culture the word  has various meanings frequently contrary.  Passion can mean full engagement or an obsessive drive to excel in a vocation such as music, science, business, learning, teaching, sports or medicine. A human can even be passionate to end suffering. The Buddha's calling. 

        There's a personal story around this rose. I bought the tea rose at the grocery store early in May. Being a typical forgetful husband I bought the rose for six dollars on the day of our anniversary. In a very small pot the rose had several vibrant red blooms. At first the rose resided on our oak dining table that sits in front of the slider that opens onto the deck. As the blossoms faded  I cut the plant back and repotted it into a larger pot.

        The cross or tree is an ancient universal symbol which can also be interpreted in different ways. Draw a line around the cross, you get nearly a circle or an ellipse. The psychiatrist Karl Jung considered the circle or mandala to be a universal symbol that represents wholeness.  Implying that to achieve wholeness a human must be stretched out or grow in all directions; to know all aspects of their being. The Good, the Bad, the Ugly and the Divine. To become whole requires a person to suffer the truth. See our imperfections and limitations which paradoxically can lead to awakening.

    

        The tea rose responded well to repotting. Moved to  the deck the rose bloomed once again giving more by sharing its resilient beauty. My wife Darlene fell on July 22 in the middle of the night and broke her femur while I slept soundly. With my CPAP over my nose supplying air pressure for sleep apnea, I thought I was dreaming, hearing someone calling for help in what sounded like a strange voice. Slowly waking up I threw on a shirt, entered the living room to find three neighbor ladies leaving and informing me as they left that my wife had fallen in the bathroom and the EMTs were on the way. With a fire station only blocks away the EMT's entered immediately after the ladies exited.  

August 9, 2023

     After surgery added a titanium plate and eight screws to hold the bone together my wife entered skilled nursing. The building appeared nice with great paintings decorating the halls and the facility had a five star rating from Medicare. With Medicare and supplemental insurance we thought we had all bases covered. All she needed was the time necessary to heal. And I needed a outpatient procedure to help alleviate chronic tendonitis in my left ankle. All seemed doable for I was going to have two weeks of confinement at home in a boot following the outpatient procedure.

        Then during a transfer procedure done improperly at the skilled nursing facility my wife sprained or broke her left ankle. Transfers are done to get the patient onto a platform that can be rolled into the bathroom. Now her good leg had been severely injured.  I arrived there in late afternoon to great confusion. Supposedly they were going to x-ray her ankle with a portable machine there. Then no. Or maybe. Then not till tomorrow. I looked at her ankle which had swollen up to double in size. Why no ice pack? She kicked it off they said. I found it under the covers. At room temperature it hadn't had ice in it for hours. My blood started to boil.   

             They had done nothing for  hours not even bothering to check on the ice pack or get an x-ray done. I had a heated exchange with the nurse the upshot of which they called to get her taken to the emergency room for x-rays and necessary treatment. I stayed with her in the emergency room till midnight. The ankle turned out to be severely sprained. The next day back at the skilled nursing facility they all circled the wagons, blamed my wife for the improper transfer. As if she were responsible for training and supervising the staff. Call this what it is Skilled Nursing Hell! Now she needed a bedpan to go to the bathroom. 

        Then they were going to kick my wife out of skilled nursing due to what they called the Doughnut hole. We called Medicare twice the people we talked to said no she was still qualified for skilled nursing. Immense confusion followed with the people at Medicare evidently wrong. Then my wife was forced to transfer to assisted living Hell. Meanwhile I'd had the procedure done on my tendon and was confined at home in a boot with a knee roller to keep weight of the foot. All the while the tea rose on our deck continued to bloom.

August 16, 2023

        Passion 

     Survivors of Survivors

        Live on hope's tree,

            Crossed limbs bear

                Ripening humanity,

                    Suffering all seasons,

                       Just for the passion,

                               To Be; 

        The Biblical story of Adam and Eve I believe to be a misinterpretation.  Adam and Eve were not thrown out of the Garden of Eden by God for Eve's discovery of Right and Wrong.  Eve's discovery of morality meant they/us/we could no longer live just as naked animals. But our potential to live as spiritual beings seems limited by our animal body. These apparent conflicting realities give us the potential to suffer the truth. Eve wasn't cursed to suffer pain in child birth. Eve became conscious that she had to suffer the pangs of an animal process to give birth. The cognitive dissonance of being both an animal with animal drives and a spiritual being with a higher calling creates our suffering. This myth marks the evolutionary moment in history Eve and Adam discovered our spiritual potential to develop into human beings. As human beings... to be more than just another animal competing for life on planet earth.

 

September18, 2023

    As I recuperated at home I would send pictures of our rose to Darlene to encourage her. She informed me later that those pictures came when she felt most despondent and wanted to give up. 

        Unfortunately on planet earth a complete transition to living as moral beings has yet to fully develop. Animal drives frequently take control, even dominate, leading to terrorism and war such as the most recent in Ukraine and now in Israel versus Hamas in Gaza. The Ugly! 

    After being neglected for a week in assisted living my wife called EMT's and had them take her to the UW Hospital on the east side for reevaluation. The EMTs that came to get her commented on how bad the facility appeared to be and her condition. The emergency room doctor observed how bad she looked. I drove to the hospital, rolled into her room on my knee roller, looked at her and wondered if she would make it. She had lost over thirty pounds now with an IV in her arm to rehydrate her she looked like death warmed over.  

        Only greater consciousness can cure suffering. Consciousness that can identify with the universal creative energy. That which has many names: Tao, Brahma, God, Yahweh, Allah and countless others. Or as my muse prefers; The-Power-That-Flows-Through-All-Things.  

October 16, 2023

            That which opens the door to end suffering begins with compassion. The desire to end suffering begins with love. The Buddha said this about self-compassion. "You can search the whole tenfold universe and not find a single being more worthy of love and compassion than the one seated here -- yourself."

            The end of denial starts with self-compassion. A crisis arrives unwanted in our lives that we suffer until we cry out for help. Self-compassion, the desire to end our own suffering.  The same for the Buddha who's initial  motivation  was to end his own suffering. Once he discovered how to end his own suffering he then began sharing his experience with other human beings. This became his passion for the remainder of his days.

Darlene Recovering at Middleton Villages

                  After she left the hospital Darlene entered skilled nursing at Middleton Villages also known as the Villa. There she received loving support and encouragement from the staff. When down, feeling that she wasn't making progress, her care givers gave her encouragement and positive feedback to buoy her spirit. 

            Thank You All from the Bottom of Our Hearts!

    Daralene's** aka Darlene's personal message; "Thank You to everyone at Middleton Villages who helped me recover from my broken leg and flagging spirit. Many times I wanted to give up, but you wouldn't let me or leave me in that dark place. Thanks to PT Brandon and staff for getting me back on my feet. Thanks to Ortho and Kate for strengthening my arms and spirit. And especially to the CNA's who travelled the hallway to offer help and compassion and smiles always needed. To name a few Russ who even bathed and put lotion on my feet, Garrett, Chris, Sierra, Sabrina, Jessica, Jim and many more. Thanks to the nurses to name a few; Angie, Nate, Karyl and Geneva for lessening my pain. I am a better person from knowing all of you and now am able again to stand on my own two feet assisted by a walker. Thanks to all who helped me in Room 53. **Ps: The tag by the door had my name misspelled as Daralene Cook a minor faux pas." 

   Thanks Kristy, who as I rolled in the door to visit Darlene greeted me!

Thanks to Nancy our downstairs neighbor who heard Darlene calling for help then roused our neighbors, Dan and Patty and Gale who has a pass key so they could get in to find her and call for help. 

  Lao Tzu observed long ago,  "Love is of all passions the strongest for it attacks simultaneously the head, the heart, and the senses." 

*December's Rose

        God may indeed be love.  For the greatest passion is love which runs deep. The rose plant grows deeply rooted in soil. The shoots and branches spread out to gather light so the rose may grow, bud and bloom. Light the energy of life for plant, animal and all on our planet allows the rose to bloom and manifest spiritual energy into a visible form called beauty. Beauty resonates within us as spirit sees the best of its own reflection. Thus consciousness rises to echo through evolution leading to us after 4.6 billion years of changing earth. 

    Evolution has a purpose. Will humanity live up to our spiritual potential? Will we learn to love ourselves, develop enough self-compassion so that we may also love our neighbors? Many on this planet do practice these spiritual principles. Darlene and I wish to give all a shout out and wish them and all our friends and family: 

                           Happy Holidays! 

                      May You All Be Blessed!

*Ps: I brought the rose plant in after a hard freeze then set it inside by the patio door. The blooms faded and dried I thought I would cut it back and see if it would bloom next year. Before cutting it back I decided to take a picture for this blog I noticed it had sprouted some fresh green leaves. Seems amazing to me who doesn't have a green thumb. That's one truly resilient loving plant! 

            Anthony G. Hendricks, author, poet, nature lover -- naturally;  Buddha Blues, recently published with a great cover created by his Sister Judith; available at Amazon as print on demand or as an e book at Amazon or Kobo. With formatting help on cover and interior by Woven Red. Other books The Wasteland Revisited, a book length poem about the dystopia causing global warming; available as an e book at Amazon; A Journey In The Human Dilemma, collected poetry and prose; trade paper back.