The Reign of the Tulips

I could keep publishing cherry pics; I have several dozen more (for heaven's sake) but you get the picture, yes? The peak of the bloom has now passed which means cherry petals are fluttering fluttering from the trees like tiny prayer flags of love, like pink snow. I love the peak of the bloom but I also really love it when they fall. It's like a blessing. It is.

Mourn, if you will, the passing of the pink. Now is the time of the tulip in Washington DC. They are rising everywhere in a profusion of color that will only get more intense as the season progresses. From now until July we'll see new shapes, new colors, appearing every day. Right now it's the tulips, but any day the azaleas will begin to pop, then there will be roses.

I love spring in DC but it is a bit much for me, it really is. Maybe I shouldn't admit it publicly, but I find the beauty, the profusion of life force, the hugeness of spring here completely overwhelming. Sometimes I am such a wimp!

Hell first, then Heaven?

It's Good Friday and though I'm not Christian, I have the utmost respect for and fascination with Easter. In the U.S. Christmas is the most widely known and practiced Christian holiday, except it's not really Christian anymore for many who observe it. From my non-Christian point of view, Easter is the central holiday. The cross is the symbol of Christianity, after all. It is such a powerful symbol.

Sometimes I wonder what Christianity would look like if some other aspect of the life of Jesus was the focus, like the miracles of healing or his teachings about love and peace. The fact that gruesome torture and sacrifice came to be held at the heart of Christianity has not always brought out the best in some who follow that path.

(I should say, straightaway, that I believe Judaism has some serious problems at the center of its theology, too, like being "the chosen people" for instance. That is total crap, if you ask me. All are chosen. Or none, whichever you prefer. Being "chosen" has always gotten us into trouble with others as well as with ourselves.)


You can see one of the duck couple who swam along with me, on the far right side of the pic.

But today is Good Friday which is why I'm thinking about the Christian model of redemption, a transformation that requires (just as in the story of Passover) suffering first, followed by transcendence. If I'm on to something with my idea that both of these spring stories are allegories of childbirth, the suffering makes sense. Women in late stage pregnancy are rarely comfortable. Labor and delivery are at the very best completely exhausting, and are often experiences of tremendous pain, like torture, strung out over a period of several hours. But then the baby comes and all the suffering is forgiven and forgotten.

Do you think suffering is a necessary part of redemption? I spoke to a Presbyterian minister recently who said absolutely not! He believes the only thing necessary for redemption is to remember that we are connected to God and each other. It's an interesting point of view, especially from clergy. It's possible I agree with him, not sure yet.

Today, just as on every Good Friday, my prayers go out to all who suffer. May they be released from their pain, may they be transformed by their experiences. May all who suffer find, in their heart of hearts, the capacity to rise. Amen.

Ouroboros

Yesterday I saw lots of blossoms coming directly out of the trunks. Weird and cool!

"Frilly, frothy cherriness," is the way my friend K-brow describes the bloom. Oh yeah. What's really cool about this time of year is the juxtaposition of all that soft, ephemeral, brand new pinkness blossoming from a tree whose trunk is truly the most gnarly thing you've ever seen. Cherry tree trunks are twisted, lumpy, sporting an uneven texture of bumps and grinds. They are amazing to look at, though I would never call them pretty. When they bloom, cherry trees bring together grizzled old age with smooth, pink infancy. It is a powerful alchemy!

So it's no wonder that a part of my annual cherry ritual includes eating some of the blossoms. When I tell people this, they always look alarmed, tell me I shouldn't eat them, that they probably aren't edible or might hurt me. I eat some every year, people. So far they have had no perceivable impact on me, other than producing an urge to wear pink for a few days afterwards.





Though extremely bitter, I can taste the cherry in them. They taste like unsweetened cough syrup. According to Chinese medicine, cherries are good for the heart. I know, I KNOW, I'm not eating cherries and in fact these Japanese cherry trees do not actually ever produce fruit. But I'm eating the essence of cherry. I'm taking into my body the alchemy I described above. I am eating spring. How can that be bad for me, especially at my age?

I'm sure the ducks eat plenty of blossoms, too. Once the bloom has passed its peak, bushels of cherry blossom petals flutter into the basin like pink snow. Considering their diet of discarded tourist junk food, the blossoms are probably the most delicious thing those ducks ever get.

It's another splendid day today. My plans include a very long walk with the big dog past all the blooming cherry trees on Capitol Hill. My goodness, I love Washington DC in spring. Oh yeah!!


"Junk food" is an oxymoron, isn't it?

My Cherry Amour

It is not possible to take a bad picture on a spectacular spring morning at the peak of the Japanese cherry tree bloom which accounts for why there were so many of us out there in the chilly, windy early morning, walking around the Tidal Basin, smiling, capturing image after image on the fanciest as well as the cheapest cameras.

I'm not saying there were lots of people. It was early so only the folks who really really really wanted to be, were there. The cherry minions (as someone referred to the tourists) don't arrive until about 9:30 or 10:00. We locals tend to go just after the sun rises, to take pictures, stroll around the basin, or picnic, or all three. It's kind of hard sharing the nation's capital with the rest of the nation sometimes. Just sayin'.

One of the really great features of this morning's walk was a duck couple who swam along next to me almost all the way around the basin. Perhaps they were looking for a handout; those Tidal Basin ducks love junk food. I explained very specifically that I had nothing for them, not even a crumb, but they followed me nonetheless. I love little miracles like that so much.



On the subway I sat next to a man reading The Idiot's Guide to Paganism. I couldn't stop myself from saying, "Why don't you put the book away, go walk around the Tidal Basin and let the cherries tell you all about it?" He frowned slightly and gave me a strange look, but when I got off the train he said, "Have a nice day!" Maybe I gave him pause for thought. Who knows?

It's always a good thing for me to break my self-imposed rules, to just get up, for instance, brush my teeth, put on my clothes and walk out the door (instead of following my iron-bound routine of shower-meditate-coffee-newspaper-breakfast-blog, after which it's "OK" to begin my day). It was definitely well worth the breach of protocol today. I feel bathed in pure pink and white, washed clean by the sound of the water and sky, cheered by my duck companions. What a day. All I can say is: wow.

Cherry Madness

It's pouffy out there, people. Pink, white, light spreen green, lurid purple and bright lemon yellow. It's frilly and fouffy, foppish and silly, such a funny landscape for a city that is known for its buttoned-down, stern, hard-working atmosphere.

The trees and gardens don't seem to care about how it's supposed to be in DC. They're in a happy orgy of blossom, exploding with the delicate colors of early spring.

Tra-la-la. Tomorrow at the crack of dawn I will make my yearly pilgrimmage down to the Tidal Basin to see the cherries in bloom. I hear the trees are close to their peak. The usual throngs of cherry-bound tourists have arrived, which is why I like to head out before I'm actually all the way awake, coffee cup in one hand, camera in the other.

The biggest crowds don't descend on the basin until about 10:00 a.m. It's worth getting up early, it really is. I'll take pictures.

Three Hundred and Fifty Steps

Every now and then members of Congress conduct tours of the dome of the Capitol. It involves climbing hundreds of steps up through all the layers of the dome to the very top where those who have mustered the valour to climb that far can stare directly into the Apotheosis of Washington, a huge painting that, according to the Architect of the Capitol, is the "eye" of the Capitol. Who knew it had an eye? Though, that said, ... I always thought of the painting as a lens placed very specifically at the center of the four quarters of the city, focusing energy down through all the floors of the building into the ground below, and upwards, through the apotheosis, into the sky. Thinking of it as an eye gives it purpose, consciousness, even - qualities I would not associate with a lens.

Talk about the All-Seeing Eye. Wow!

One of these days between now and June, whenever it works out, I'm going to be a part of one of these hikes up and up and up to the eye of the Capitol. I am so jazzed!

Before September 11th I spent a considerable amount of time on the floor of the dome, usually alone, just sitting, watching all the swirling energy. It was quite thrilling. (There was public access to the Capitol then.) On August 17, 2001, a group of cohorts and I cast a triangle of stillness around the center of the dome, using three beautiful chunks of rose quartz. One of us recited "Let America Be America Again" by Langston Hughes. It was quite a dramatic ritual, but back then, you could do stuff like that in public places without any fear of being thrown out, or worse: sent to Gitmo.

Sure enough, not quite one month later, after the twin towers fell and the Pentagon burned, we were vamoosed from our casual visits there. Though never still at the center, the dome remained empty for some time afterwards. We certainly anticipated something with that work. Oh yeah.

I still miss having access to that incredible, magical space. But a walk up to the top? Up to the eye? Wow!! That will be SO cool! I hope they let me take pics. I can't wait.


I wish I could remember which building this is. Look at the size of that sculpture! Wow.

The lengths we go to say thanks

Tomorrow night is the beginning of Passover, a week from today is Easter. I love both holidays so much. The drama, oh my God, the drama of those stories! Blood will be shed, by the firstborn of the Egyptians, by all those poor lambs who gave their lives so the Jews could mark their doors against the Angel of Death, by Jesus dying on the cross. But what follows the bloodshed is redemption, the rising of Jesus from his grave, the arrival - at long last - of the Jews to the promised land. In these stories we tell every year, the blood sacrifice serves a greater good.

Christians give up something for Lent, Jews give up all food that rises for Passover. I'm guessing this is our modern-day version of blood sacrifice. Is that right?

Every year I wonder about the source of these incredible holidays. One of my theories is that springtime blood sacrifice originated as a ritual way of celebrating the bloodshed that accompanies birth. Anyone who has ever attended or given birth will tell you that the epic of childbirth is extremely dramatic, and very bloody, but in the end well worth it. Birth is a miracle, an every day miracle, but a miracle just the same. Blood sacrifice must have originated because of the experience of childbirth, don't you think? No one knows for certain, of course, since this ancient form of devotion began long before written history caught up with it, many many thousands of years before we began telling the stories of Passover and Easter. I'll never solve the mystery, but I love thinking about it anyway.

Life is precious, as the Buddhists say. It's so precious, in fact, that we're willing to spill blood just to let God know how much it means to us. L'chaim, y'all, L'chaim!