Tale of the last cucumber

My darling and entertaining husband and I were sitting out on the patio, on a late September morning a couple of days ago, enjoying a cup of coffee and the coolness that has sprung up this last week. It's been a hot summer here in Colorado, a long season for those of us who don't enjoy sweating all that much, but great for gardens. We garden with a combination of in the ground plants and containers, and one cucumber plant did especially well there on the patio, in a big pot. It was fascinating to watch the little green curly tendrils waving about, seeking something to grab on to. A little creepy actually, but if a gardener keeps moving there isn't much danger. It wound all around the wire support we had given it, and popped yellow flowers and baby cukes prolifically. My husband pickles, thank God, and we are supplied for the winter. Salsa too, as the tomatoes thrived as well.

Anyone who knows me knows that sooner or later every subject can be morphed into a spiritual teaching or idea. This is no different.

As late summer approached, it became clear that some disease had come to call on our star cucumber plant. I believe It's called powdery mildew, it covers the leaves with a white talcum-like substance that sucks the life from the plant and kills it. We pretty much assumed that this was the end, the plant pretty much hung in shreds, but it kept producing. By last week it looked like it was all over, and we didn't give it much more thought. Then, on the aforementioned morning, we came out onto the patio, sat down, and stared in disbelief at the plant...one more beautiful, pristine and faultless cucumber hung glistening from what looked like a lifeless branch, emerging overnight into being.

My life-mate said, "Well it had one more good one left in it." He then puffed out his cheeks and made like a toddler producing a really heroic poo, and said "Poink. There it is." I laughed until tears came to my eyes, he caught me so by surprise. I still laugh when I think about it, it was such perfect timing.

My teacher mind went into gear and thought, "It is like the spiritual journey, we have to die to the old way to bring forth some marvelous new thing.

Several analogies came to me...don't be fooled by something (or someone) that looks old and dead, never overlook the power of life, appearances are deceiving, from death comes life, nature is full of surprises. All valid.

I love the thought that once you see a thing in the outer mortal experience, it has already happened, it isn't new, it is now the past. The universe is already on to the next thing. We humans see something and believe that it's fixed in place, permanent, there forever. In truth everything is fluid pulsating energy, frequency, and light, ebbing and flowing, continuously coming into, and out of form. Back several decades I experienced seeing this during some adventures with altered states, and truly did see it. These experiences were the springboard to my spiritual journey, and I value them greatly still. I am glad to see the new movement to explore the medically controlled possibilities of psychedelia as a healing modality for all kinds of conditions, hopefully shedding the weird aura of how it all went off the rails back in the 60s.

Back to the cucumber.

"The secret of life is to die before you die and find that there is no death.”

~ Eckhart Tolle

The body that you think that you have, that you see with your physical eyes, is simply a construct of belief. We grew up seeing other people age, get sick, get injured, die, and came to believe that we would too. I remember distinctly being 6 years old standing at the living room window, and hearing my mother explain to me that our dear neighbor lady, the mother of my best friend, had died. Died? I thought, died? What is died? "Well" said my mother, "she stopped living. Her heart stopped and she died." I remember the gold color of the curtain, and the little pattern in it.

I remember feeling a great shift inside me, a kidquake. Up to that point I truly had no concept of "end of life."

It rocked my world, and the memory is vivid. I had nightmares for a long time that this lady that I loved would walk into my classroom, alive and well, but I couldn't get to her, couldn't move my feet at all, couldn't make a sound. That stopped of course. All humans go through some form of this experience, and it defines us, regarding what we think about death anyway.

I think that our true body is that same energy, frequency and light that flows through all creation. I'll bet that if I had that kind of vision, and I'm working on it, I could have seen the life-light that still moved through that cucumber plant. Faint maybe, but still powerful to create, to perform it's cucumber mission and duty. It pours through us all, it's instructive and exciting to have the courage to look at our body and realize that it is the past. A gatherin+g of belief and conditioning that is actually unreal, dead if you like. Ago. Was. Kaputski. Have a closed eyes moment and see the flowing radiance of life that is the truth of our being. Wheeeeeee! Our breath as light. Here is a thrilling freedom, a oneness with all the intelligence and creativity, the living Divinity of the Universe. All universes. There are mental, karmic and ego blockages to these realizations of course, but there is nothing that cannot be healed, nothing that cannot be moved by light. Go be a cucumber.

Cucumber Wisdom.

Kristin Strachan Compassionbuddha.net

I recommend Dr. and Master Zhi Gang Sha's teachings on the inner and outer energy circles, and how to clear and strengthen them.

There is also a Buddhist meditation technique called Bone Breathing, that brings light into the body, I'm sure information is available on the internet.