Equilibrium

Samatvam Yoga Uchyate - Being equanimous is yoga (Bagavad Gita)

Anyone who knows me will know that I am far from equinamous by nature.

The daily yoga practice and mornings like today’s equinox sunrise at Lake Caballo help bring me into balance.

Last week’s heavy monsoon storms have raised the lake level a little, though there was still a far portage over rocks before I could put in. The storms have also washed a fair bit of debris into the lake, much of it now fringing the shoreline, with bigger branches still floating free.

A light southerly wind blowing counter to the Rio Grande heartbeat of southward flowing current of this lake made for gentle, pleasant chop this morning.

I was glad I chose to take the yellow Ocean Kayak Scrambler with its masterful surfer design today. It is such an eager vessel, sleek and willing, riding the rippled water effortlessly, slipping into all that crumpled satin light. Unbearable lightness thy name is Scrambler. Yes this Ancient One of my personal fleet is getting on for forty years old now, and I am careful not to ram submerged floaters. Both our bodies, the kayak and mine, are more brittle than they once were. She was made for riding ocean waves. One feels it in the way she flows and cleaves in water. I hardly feel I am paddling, but rather partnered with a living being which has a force and momentum all its own. Design experienced is an amazing thing.

The light was magnificent this morning. This is why I live where I do, and do what I do.

Light. Mutability. Equanimity.

Achieved.

Clouds were some kind of special magnificence too. We are currently under a flood watch with heavy rains predicted later today. Fingers crossed.

The sky and the water tell the story. I am lost in the light.

I return home restored, refreshed, recalibrated to work on my next batch of fiesta flags. Southwest Print Fiesta, my next big art market, in Silver City is two weeks and two days away now. Saturday 10 October is the Print Market. https://www.southwestprintfiesta.org/

I did find time to do a quick tour through the garden and greet the host of creamy Zephyranthes candida (Rain lily, fairy lily, rainflower) who spend most of the year being almost invisible little grassy stalks, until a monsoon storm does this to them. Pollinators adore them.

I also found some swelling okra pods on the handful of plants which survived the summer of hell and neglect. Such beauties they are. I look forward to baking these soon. It’s been a while since I ate anything from the garden.

With cooler weather, I am able, once again, to enjoy breakfast in the garden, in Cafe Paradiso. Potato pancakes, homemade pickles and peach chutney and papaya on this day. The apricot tree skipped autum, the same way it skipped spring this year. It dropped all its leaves suddenly in the heat of late summer. I do hope it is going to be okay.

Foxy (aloe) ferox thinks everything is just peachy and is offering a magnificent inflorescence for equinox this year. If cheerful optimism were a plant, it surely must be this aloe. And yes, I really need to do something about garden maintenance. It’s cooler now. I look forward to spending mornings disciplining all that invasive grass.

Another hardy South African native, Tulbaghia (society garlic) is also currently flowering. I thinned and redistributed the clump at the beginning of the year. I wasn’t sure how they would react. I am really pleased that they not only survived the heat and drought and neglect of my absence, but have also found the resources within their tiny bulbs to bloom lovely lavender.

May this equinox bring you equilibrium, and fill all the rivers and rain gauges of the world.