Southern California Edison conducted a planned power outage for nine hours today, so I decided to spend most of the 65-or-so-degree day working in our half-acre yard. I spread mulch, weeded, and transplanted a few succulents to fill in some bare spots.

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I am a simile and metaphor geek; I look for and see them everywhere, and our yard provides many. Today, after I finished working, I decided to sit on our patio and meditate for a while. I sat quietly, just noticing the gentle breeze and birdsong. Soon I saw a lizard make its way to the very top of a nearby tall statue of a Native American woman. Judging by his enthusiastic push-up behavior, I assumed it was a male lizard showing off his prowess, like Rocky Balboa when he reached the top of the Philadelphia Art Museum’s 72 steps. After exercising and sunbathing for a while, the lizard swiveled around and started back down, pausing just a moment to sneak a peek at me from behind the woman’s hair, like a child playing hide and seek.

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I strolled around the yard and played with more similes and metaphors that abound there. I came to a steep slope that I had terraced with rocks just yesterday, to try and stop the incline from eroding when it rains. I dug some trenches and inserted several wood barriers to further hold back cascading mud. My mantra, “no mud, no lotus” came to mind. Enter metaphor mind: I thought, What barriers do I put up to stop any ‘mud’ from seeping into my life? Of course, some always will, but the outcome is often an enlightening lesson.

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I walked on and came to my years-old geraniums. Their existence, their new growth and blossoms, remind me of how tough they are to withstand being decimated by winter’s freezing temperatures. The snow and ice take them right down to the ground, but they come back when warm weather returns. They are survivors, like me.

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A couple of weeks ago, I sowed wildflower seeds in a large pot full of fresh potting soil. The tiny green leaves just emerging reminded me that there is always new growth when we plant seeds in optimal conditions. Am I planting any personal seeds this spring, and what am I hoping will emerge and bloom in my life?

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Several years ago, we bought a fountain whose rod-iron back looked like arched church windows. I loved hearing the trickling water just outside our front door. But after three different pumps quit working, I decided to create a small living garden where the water would have collected. I planted jade cuttings and a pink geranium, and it now resembles an altar. Could that be a good lesson in “going with the flow” of life?  If our original intentions don’t come to fruition, there may be a different blessing waiting to appear.  

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We have two ornamental pomegranate trees that are blooming in our yard (and one actual pomegranate tree whose fruit and seeds birds beat us to every year). My women’s group has used the symbols and myths about pomegranates in our rituals. They symbolize fertility in Ancient Greece and Rome, and are associated with Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, as well as Hera, the Greek goddess of marriage and childbirth, and many others. In the Greek myth of Persephone, she eats seeds given to her by the lord of the Underworld, obligating her to return there for half of every year.

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Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Zoroastrianism all see the pomegranate as a symbol both life and death, and how we mediate between the two. Rabbis, popes, kings, and poets have all made the fruit symbolic of the One and the many. As I wandered around our yard, in metaphorical land, I thought about the pomegranate trees representing the eternal Oneness that connects all faiths and all living things. When it is time for Dennis and me to downsize, I will miss our garden, a favorite place to meditate, but I will remember the metaphors.

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Billie Rogers

May 2022