There was a gypsy evening of storytelling and music, at a self sufficiency event I wanted to attend . I thought about a story I might tell. I didn’t end up going to the event as I did last year, since we are already living the self sufficient life ! We are so busy doing that and I didn’t want to be away a weekend when I could be working instead on one of our many projects here.
Now in my family, we are all storytellers, and we all elaborate our stories adding more stories to the original. Let’s see if I can write it as I would tell it:
People ask me why I moved into a monastery at the age of 24. It all started with a motorcycle, a Norton Commando, to be exact. I had this boyfriend at that time. he was blond I’m blond, he was a triathlete, I was riding my bike 28 miles to college each day plus swimming four + times a week at his encouragement. We got along really well. Anyway his mom gave me a piece of Christmas china for a present. A few months later , I had a vision of my life unfolding with him; the Volvo wagon, some acceptable suburban lifestyle, walking a baby in a jog stroller. I broke up with him the next day, I could not see myself living this life.
The next day I was selling my Karman Ghia and this unique looking guy in retro shades, a used army jacket and work boots drove up on ” The Motorcycle”. He was like taking a different road . He and his friends were involved with the patrons of the monastery, some of them worked as cooks or gardeners at their estate. Most were meditating. This was 1979 and I realized I had found what I’d been looking for.
To be able to work at this estate, they taught regular meditation classes, I had to either become a cook or a gardener. I decided to try my hand at gardening. I started with a small patch outside our tiny cottage ” The Guy” and I were sharing. I could just afford a few six packs of flowers, I tried delphiniums and foxgloves. These grew to the overwhelming height of ten to twelve feet tall, a rose blew in and grew and started blooming, other bulbs just came up. It seemed the earth was trying to tell me something, maybe I was good at this ? Then I turned the corner and started gardening in the next long bed, then the huge front bed, double digging it all with manure after my bakery job was done each day. Flowers started blooming abundantly everywhere. I started trading them for gelato credit at a local shop. Other stores joined in purchasing flowers.
One day the woman I admired so much at the estate garden, told me the story of the two sisters;
There were two sisters, each wanted to grow a flower garden for the fair flower show at the end of the summer. Both sisters turned their front yards into huge flower gardens. One sister would give her flowers away to whoever was coming by for a visit. The other sister wouldn’t cut any of hers trying to keep them for the fair. Well when the time for the fair came around, the sister who had given away all the flower bouquets still had lot’s of flowers, while the sister who wouldn’t cut hers had all her garden go to seed and had no more flowers. Cutting flowers helps them to grow more flowers.